iPhone Tips and Tricks thread

Create your own iphone wallpapers!

Following this easy tutorial you can make your personalized wallpaper from any photo for your iPhone or iPod. Moreover, you can apply these principles by making wallpapers for any device or gadget, only using different image sizes. Though you can make iPhone wallpaper from any photo, choose portrait photos rather than landscape. For creating iPhone wallpaper you can use Photoshop or free image app XnView.

Photoshop version
1. Open photo or image for iPhone wallpaper in Photoshop (Ctrl+O).
2. Select Crop tool by pressing C key.
3. Put in Width 320, Height 480, Resolution 72 in Crop tool options.


4. Stretch the corners of Crop tool frame trying include most of image, press Enter.

6. Save for web (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) as jpg with Quality 75, check Optimized.
7. Now you have your iPhone wallpaper! Put it to your Photos in iPhone using iTunes and set it as your wallpaper.



XnView version
1. Open photo or image for iPhone wallpaper in XnView.
2. Apply Edit->Set selection ratio->3:2
3. Stretch the corners of Crop frame trying includeу most of image, press Ctrl+Y to crop it.
4. Resize image (Shift+S), put in Width 320, Height 480, Resample – Lanczos.
5. Save your iPhone wallpaper (Ctrl+Shift+S) as jpg with Quality 90, check Optimize Huffman table.

When you are typing:

Hold down the buttons like A to get variety of alternatives A's.

Here are the letters that work: E, Y, U, I, O, S, L, Z, C, N, ?, and !

I thought it was a little odd that "=" didn't have the alternative "not equals" sign.

Hope this helped someone, as I have no reason for this.

Just realized this has already been posted. My bad... didn't read the small details...

Here is a tip:
When you listening to music and are at the album artwork screen, swipe the artwork from right to left and you will go back a screen.

ChrisN

cruzin said:

Pretty sure I haven't read this tip anywhere: Just like e-mails, if you drag text messages off of the screen, they to give the delete option.

Hope this helps someone!

cruzin

Click to expand...

This also works for videos in the iPod section, but I can't get it to work for music. :/

Double Tap + Space Bar = Period

elistan said:

Here's another one from a different thread:

When typing, here's a quick way to input a period. Click on the .?123 button and slide your finger over to the period (or comma) and release. A period will be written, and the keyboard will go back to letters. Alternatively, click the .?123 button with your left thumb and tap the period button with the other. Again, you'll get the period and the keyboard will switch back to letters.

Click to expand...

There is also an option under settings in which if you tap the space bar "twice" it will enter a period for you automatically so that you don't have to stop typing. I have found this useful personally...

Search contacts feature

I've searched this thread to see if I actually discovered something not already on Macrumors and couldn't find it here. Hope someone finds it useful.

The best feature on treo not offered on iPhone was the ability to look up a number by dialing the first letter of the first name and last two letters of the last name. If you didn't know their last name you could search for the first name. None of this is natively available on the iPhone.

However you can search the contact database by starting a text message and typing in the contacts first or last name and it then will help you discover what your looking for. In case you forgot your contacts last name, like I sometimes do.

fozy said:

I've searched this thread to see if I actually discovered something not already on Macrumors and couldn't find it here. Hope someone finds it useful.

The best feature on treo not offered on iPhone was the ability to look up a number by dialing the first letter of the first name and last two letters of the last name. If you didn't know their last name you could search for the first name. None of this is natively available on the iPhone.

However you can search the contact database by starting a text message and typing in the contacts first or last name and it then will help you discover what your looking for. In case you forgot your contacts last name, like I sometimes do.

Click to expand...

i know there are some tweaks for that offered by a commercial app - http://ripdev.com/caterpillar (smart dialer) so i guess there are some other apps for that too

how do i post a new forum... almost computer illiterate

goldenjelly said:

how do i post a new forum... almost computer illiterate

Click to expand...

Select "New Thread"

sometimes my iPhone turns off and there's no way to turn it on except praying but last time i found some other way, hold the wake and home button together for about 5 seconds and it will turn on again

AJsAWiz said:

Select "New Thread"

Click to expand...

thanks!

curious

my children got ahold of my phone and got it all sticky... ive cleaned it off since them but the screen feels different, does anyone know was there some kind of oil or something on it?

Hi all,

searched around in the forums, but found to answer to my question, so here goes:

Is it possible to get my high resolution photos copied to the iPhone via iTunes without that "optimization" that iTunes automatically applies to each photo?

After the optimization, many images become somewhat pixelized

Thanks in advance

email options

can anybody help me with the email settings, my carrier is vodafone and i have a hotmail address. any help would be much appreciated, thanks in advance

Do you pay for your hotmail account? If not you can't set up your email using the Mail application. You will have to go to hotmail.com via Safari.

syncing hotmail

by coincidence I found a way to forward Hotmail messages to any mail account for free (a.k.a Windows Live Mail).
With a standard free Hotmail account you can only forward e-mails to hotmail.com, msn.com or live.** accounts.
Unfortunately you can't forward to Gmail or any other e-mail account.

Still I managed to forward my Hotmail messages to Gmail without using any 3rd party app or proxy!
With this trick you can forward your Hotmail messages to any e-mail account of your choice to use its pop3 or IMAP access functionality.
This will allow you to read your Hotmail on your iPhone using the standard mail application.
The trick is to sign up with Microsoft for Hotmail SMS "mobile alerts".
Strangly this will give you the option to forward mail to any mail account.
Usually you have to pay 25p per sms e-mail alert when receiving a new Hotmail message.
The good thing is that you can switch off the "mobile alerts" after signing up. By doing so, you will never receive an sms alert, so no added costs!

While signing up there's no need to enter credit card or bank account information.
You will receive 1 sms to activate the sms mobile alert functionality, but that's all!

Please note that the button and link tags might differ slightly from what I translated. I did however change the language of my Hotmail account to English to make sure that most of the information is accurrate

how its done

try this
This is how it works:
1. Visit http://join.msn.com/
2. Click on "Hotmail for mobile phones".
3. Read the information thoroughly! Also the pricing part.
4. Now click on "register now" and after that click "register now" again.
5. Chose your mobile operator and fill in your mobile phone number.
6. Finish the rest of the sign-up process. Don't check the boxes for Hotmail alerts and MSN alerts!
7. In the sign-up settings specify to NOT receive any SMS alerts for Hotmail messages. Leave the other settings to stay as specified in your Hotmail account.
8. Finish the subscription. You'll now receive an activation SMS with a 4 digit code. Enter this code on the activation page. This is the only sms you'll receive and pay through your mobile carrier.
9. After the subscription visit your Hotmail account with your web browser. Now go to "options"=>"more options".
10. In the section "Customize your mail" go to option "mobile alerts for new messages" and make sure the option "None. Never send me mobile alerts" is selected. You will never receive any alert sms by setting this option so you will stay free of charges! Press save.
11. In the section "Manage your account" visit "Forward mail to another e-mail account".
12. Fill in any e-mail address you want you Hotmail to be forwarded to, for instance your Gmail account. Press save and confirm the setting by clicking the link in the e-mail that has been sent to the specified e-mail address. The setting has now been accepted by Hotmail!
13. Configure your Gmail or other mail account on the iPhone (if you haven't already done so) and receive your Hotmail messages on the iPhone!

Have fun!

Attention! If you make a wrong setting, you might receive mobile sms alerts and it'll cost you!
Pay attention to what you're doing. It's your responsibility to make the right settings!
For me it works perfect and it's free

elistan said:

Here's another one from a different thread:

When typing, here's a quick way to input a period. Click on the .?123 button and slide your finger over to the period (or comma) and release. A period will be written, and the keyboard will go back to letters. Alternatively, click the .?123 button with your left thumb and tap the period button with the other. Again, you'll get the period and the keyboard will switch back to letters.

Click to expand...

Even simpler would be to just tap the spacebar twice and you will get the period.

Copy Paste Functionality

I have not been able to find any copy, cut, paste functionality for email and sms. Am I missing something, or is this functionality not available? Is it available in version 2.0?

iPhone as a Word Processor that syncs! Already on board.

Enjoy some additional "limited" functionality on your iPhone. Learn this trick and save having to purchase an additional feature someday, should it ever become available!
We will be using Address Cards as documents and the Note section for data.

ON YOUR COMPUTER:

1. Open Address Book and create (+) a new Group. Label it DOCMENTS.
2. Add (+) a new "person" to your Address Book. Name it a company:
WP-[name]. Include the date or other document title you choose. For example: WP-Memos, WP-Car Info, WP-Computer Equipment, WP-Meeting Notes, etc.

3. Drag each "person" to the DOCUMENTS folder if not there already.

4. Now, scroll down to the bottom of a WP card until you find the Note field. Click in the Note section and begin to type. How much? I'm not sure. I typed quite a bit with no problem. Unfortunately, the note section won't permit you to format text or do anything other than type raw data in the default font. Try typing a few test paragraphs. Don't forget to save!

ON YOUR iPHONE:
5. Now sync to your iPhone. Once done, click the Phone icon. Find DOCUMENTS in your Group List. Click on a WP card. Scroll down and view the text you typed in the Note section.

6. Double-click on the Note in your iPhone to open the editing screen and add/edit a few lines. Save it and sync. Your edits now are on your computer.

7. Copy the material you want to save or print to a text edit program on your computer and print-away. You can also start a new document from your DOCUMENTS group folder in your iPhone. Type, save, and sync to your desk top computer.

Note that you can have as many WP documents (oops, I mean Persons) as you want in your Group DOCUMENTS folder. You now have functionality where there was none! Hopefully, Apple will add word processing capabilities to a future OS.

If this worked for you please write back! Any suggestions? I'll pass them along to others who have requested this.

Best wishes,

Rev. Eric R Towse
etowse@nyc.rr.com

things you didn't know about your iPhone

I am amazed by the number of people I meet who had no idea the Apple earphones include a mic and can be used for calls. But then I only just found out today that you can save images by holding them down to get a save dialogs, so what do I know?

So please, share with everyone your favorite "I didn't know that!" feature or app. Maybe some of us will even learn something.

Watch the guided tours on Apple's website that goes over all the features, and even has a video of whats new in the iPhone 3G

Someone already mentioned while at the lock screen, double hitting Home brings up iPod controls.

Though, while in any application or feature, double hitting home will take you directly to your Favorite Contacts. Probably already known.

TimothyB said:

Someone already mentioned while at the lock screen, double hitting Home brings up iPod controls.

Though, while in any application or feature, double hitting home will take you directly to your Favorite Contacts. Probably already known.

Click to expand...

The Home double-tap while in any application is configurable actually. The default is going to your favorites.

It's in:
Settings > General > Home button.
You then have a choice of Home, Phone favorites and iPod

in the 2.0 software -

when typing a web address hold down the .com and you will get a choice of ".net", ".edu", ".org" and ".com"