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iPhone 101: Clearing cookies from Mobile Safari

by Erica Sadun Apr 10th 2008 at 2:45PM

This morning, I Farked my way over to this story about British Tea Cakes. The tea cakes, which appear to be nothing more than British mallomars, have been re-categorized from biscuits to cake. Far be it from me to dispute the accumulated wisdom of the EU high courts, but from this American vantage point if it looks like a cookie and tastes like a cookie, perhaps the tea cake actually is a cookie -- and not a cake. I consulted TUAW's in-residence Britishness expert Nik, who threw up his hands and asked (justifiably) whether this was actually related to Apple or its products.

Being in a cookie-minded mode, I decided to respond to a reader who asked about issues on the iPhone in visiting mobile versions of sites that were less than accommodating upon revisits. Some mobile sites hide "log out and log in as another user" details in their mobile formats. (I would point the finger at FireEagle/Yahoo--but lately they've cleaned up those problems rather nicely.)

If this situation happens to you and you really need to access a site as if it were your first visit, let me recommend clearing your cookies. And yes, I can hear you groaning: "You want us to do...what?". Unfortunately, with Mobile Safari, cookie clearing is an all or nothing proposition. You can't just clear cookies associated with a single site. It's a clean sweep or nothing at all.

To do this, open Settings > Safari. Scroll down and select Clear Cookies. The iPhone throws up a pop-up confirmation. Tap Clear Cookies and quit from Settings. Your problem sites should now act as if it's your first visit.

And, as for that whole tea cake thing? If you serve cookies for supper, are they tea cakes rather than biscuits? British people feel free to expound in the comments.



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This morning, I Farked my way over to this story about British Tea Cakes. The tea cakes, which appear to be nothing more than British...
 

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27 Comments

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john

wow

May 19 2008 at 8:19 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

Sticking with the iPhone part of this story, I was recently developing a new Web site. I did something strange (still not sure what) and suddenly my css wasn't displayed. This happened across the board with IE, Firefox and even Safari on my iPhone.

I was able to reconnect my site to its css in every browser but my iPhone Safari. Clearing cookies and history hasn't worked at all.

Any suggestions on this?

April 11 2008 at 11:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
krisjones1963

You have to make allowances for our British eccentricities (one of the joys of being British). We don't want to pay tax on our tea cakes. The argument has been played out before with Jaffa Cakes (which are remarkably biscuit-like). Of course, we don't really use the words 'cookie' and 'candy' over here.

April 11 2008 at 7:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dr Jonah

The difference is, Cakes go hard when they go stale - biscuits go soft.

Cookies are biscuits, although it seems to be the fashion to sell them once they've gone stale. Very odd.

April 11 2008 at 6:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jp

Um... from an Irish perspective it looks like a biscuit with marshmallow on top to me.

April 11 2008 at 2:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mail8

Erica, you're my favo(u)rite cookie! What a brilliant intro to such a mundane, but important task lesson.

April 11 2008 at 1:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob

This has shown up in Fark and similar sites before; the explanation, which always amuses me, is that (as has been said) cookies and cakes are taxed differently, and that, in at least one court case (dealing with Jaffa cakes, I believe), the distinction is that a cookie gets soft when it goes stale and a cake gets hard when it goes stale. Go figure.

April 10 2008 at 7:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
iPhoneinator

i dont eat hamburgers anyway... ZAXBYS IS DA WAY 2 GO!!

April 10 2008 at 7:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to iPhoneinator's comment
Codey H.

I 100% support this post. Zaxby's for the win. :)

April 11 2008 at 4:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sir. Poopy Pants

Which brings up a good question. Is the Big Mac a burger or a sandwich? What should we tax that.

April 10 2008 at 6:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Sir. Poopy Pants's comment
rikki

a burger is the meat with a bun its a sandwich.
and you can tax it what you like...

April 10 2008 at 7:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rikki

internet american?, i do belive what makes the internet is people all over the world adding to it...
if it was like your baseballs WORLD series, only played in american!
the internet would just be full of porn and plasic hollywood
if not for people like us.
so Davux or President bush what ever you name is, there are lots of people all over the world who invent things that we all use, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April 11 2008 at 7:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
rikki

i would just like to say i thought you americans spoke english, so if the english say tea cake, its tea cake!
the only good thing to come out of the states it my apple mac not a big mac

April 10 2008 at 6:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to rikki's comment
Davux

Only thing? Heard of the internet? It's American, you can leave.

April 10 2008 at 10:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Steve Barnett

Perhaps you want to check out the work by Donald Davis

April 11 2008 at 5:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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