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How can I truly take advantage of the iPhone 4?

B

brayhite

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 21, 2010
873
0
N. Kentucky
Without Jailbreaking, that is.

I just feel like I can be doing a lot more from home with the iPhone 4, at minimum cost.

I have a MBP, Airport Extreme BS, XBox 360, Samsung flat-screen, blah blah blah and the only real media sharing things I have on my iPhone are:

Rivet
Apple Remote
Air Video Server

Am I missing something that truly makes the iPhone 4 an essential piece of technology outside of the cell phone realm? Or is this what I'm basically limited to given the current abilities of commercial technology?

Remember, I'd rather avoid jailbreaking. No real validated reason, I guess, I just don't want to risk bricking or rendering the iPhone 4 less useful in any way, despite how "easy" and vital some people feel it is.

If this is a useless thread, go ahead and wasteland it. I'm just looking for general discussion and tips on making the iPhone 4 better than it is, utilizing apps, different settings, websites, etc.
 
That's a tough question sometimes when you feel like you could do everything with the phone but not sure what everything is. :D

I know for me it sort of revolves on the apps I keep on my first screen:

Calendar: for obvious uses
Camera: Becuase it does make for a great point and shoot camera in a pinch
Clock: it's my alarm clock - and a great countdown clock for my wife
Twitter/Facebook: for obvious uses
Stitcher: a great app to create a constantly updating list of podcasts for my morning ride into work
Pandora/Ipod: My afternoon & trip radio for the car
Roadtrip LE: for keeping up gas fillups/mileage - still debating on getting the upgrade to keep track of oil changes, etc.
Grocery IQ: The best grocery app that syncs great between me and my wife **only down fall for the wife is she wished it had an online way to use it on the computer**
Sportacular: for keeping up to date on Football scores
Teamviewer/RDP - for remote desktop to my work PC's in a pinch *which Teamviewer looks better on the iPad*
The Weather Channel: For the iphone it's a great app *the iPad not so much, I like Weatherbug better for the iPad*
News/Blog Apps: Like A/P, CBS, Engadget, MDN, TUAW,PopSci
Mail/SMS: for keeping in touch with my wife, etc.

That's a quick rundown of what I use my iPhone for every day - I really think I'd be a little lost without it. And that's not including games, exercise apps, travel apps like TripTracker and Tripit that worked great on my last vacation...

I think sometimes it takes time to really see how versatile and useful the iPhone is and can't really be determined in the first couple of weeks...I had the same issue with my iPad at first when after a week I was sort of at a loss becuase I didn't quite know what to do with it...now it is my goto device for web on the couch, I've read 2-3 books...have 2-3 magazine subscriptions so far through the Zinio app...starting to rebuild my comic collection through the Marvel app and etc.

Give it time...all the uses will come and you'll keep discovering even more :apple:
 
Here's what I do on a typical day:

Check email
Check my ToDo list
Get notification of bill due with BillMinder
Chat with friends on Beejive
Read an iBook/Kindle book
Check, buy, sell stocks with iStockManager
Read RSS feeds with Newsstand
Navigon my way through traffic to and from work
Listen to online radio with WunderRadio during traffic
Make an electronic deposit with Chase
Play games
Multi-task within these apps

So it seems like they are all App-related. But the iPhone 4 just does everything so much faster and display everything better (A4 chip and retina display). Some games take advantage of the gyro, and I think it's pretty impressive. Haven't tried Facetime yet, but I don't really care about video calls. Take some pics with your camera, the picture quality is alot better now (compared to the 3GS). Battery life is a definite improvement.

Not sure if I covered what you're asking for, but hope it helps.
 
So I notice those who are heavy users do alot of data usage through apps- my question is : Is 1GB Data enough?

As per my situation, i do use apps and the data for those apps, however i do 0 streaming of radio/videos (no youtube or anything).

I would use data on apps and email and what not (and good amount of browsing).

Cheers
 
silentsim said:
So I notice those who are heavy users do alot of data usage through apps- my question is : Is 1GB Data enough?

As per my situation, i do use apps and the data for those apps, however i do 0 streaming of radio/videos (no youtube or anything).

I would use data on apps and email and what not (and good amount of browsing).

Cheers
Click to expand...

You should be completely fine. If you're on AT&T, you will be fine with the 2 GB data cap. Actually, I thought I'd be pushing the limit on the 2GB cap so I did the unlimited loophole, but now after monitoring my data usage after using the Air Video Server (watched some movies from my Mac on my iPhone) and listening to Last.fm (my online radio of choice), I haven't even passed 1 GB worth yet, and I've had the iPhone for nearly 30 days.

And thanks to those who gave a daily rundown of what they do and what they use to do it.

Is the app used to view your PC remotely free? And how useful is it, as far as clunkiness/smoothness, capabilities, freezing and battery draining, etc.?

For some more direction of what I'm looking to do, I'd like to have more control over things via the iPhone. I'm looking into getting a Slingbox, but it seems so iffy as far as quality and customer satisfaction. I'd love to be able to watch live TV on my iPhone though (which is why I GoogleNews search "flo tv iphone" nearly three times a week).

I've seen the commercials for turning lights off/on from home, watching security cameras from home, etc., but none of that really interest me.
 
silentsim said:
So I notice those who are heavy users do alot of data usage through apps- my question is : Is 1GB Data enough?

As per my situation, i do use apps and the data for those apps, however i do 0 streaming of radio/videos (no youtube or anything).

I would use data on apps and email and what not (and good amount of browsing).

Cheers
Click to expand...

Depends on the apps as to if you need to download or if they store things locally and it depends on how much you are on wi-fi vs. 3G for your data.
 
UCLAKoolman said:
Ok so your uncle owns the forum. Should that mean something to me or anyone here? I still don't understand why you visit this forum.
Click to expand...

I have just as many reasons as you do to visit the forum.

And I'm a proud Apple fanboy as well. :cool:
 
You can do a lot without jailbreaking your iPhone but it pales in comparison to how much MORE you can do once you do jailbreak it.

Also, you can't brick your phone from jailbreaking it AND you can ALWAYS bring it back to the original state that it was in when you purchased it.

I encourage you to read more about the process and the advantages that it will bring you.
 
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