Geocaching is a sport / hobby in which you wander about with a GPS and try to find caches, small hidden containers with swag and a logbook inside. One of the first things I looked for in the App Store was a geocaching application that would let me a) look up caches near my present location, b) tell me when I'm getting close, and c) let me log my finds on Geocaching.com.
Well, nothing is available yet. But don't let that stop you from going out and doing a little cache hunting! See how you can go caching with nothing more than an iPhone 3G in your hand after the break.
Mobile Safari has always had a handy feature that i wished Mobile Mail would acquire. Apple must have read my mind, because it's now available.
If you're unlucky enough to receive lots of email, you can quickly jump to the top of the list by touching the menu bar (where the time is displayed) as of the iPhone 2.0 software. Ta-dah!
Remember, you can bulk delete mail with greater ease now, too. Both of these improvements are welcome, but it would be even better to be able to mark all messages as read (or unread) just as easily.
Have you ever been using Safari on your iPhone or iPod touch and wanted to save an image? Well, the 2.0 firmware makes this easy!
Just tap and hold on any picture in Safari. When you do, a menu will pop up allowing you to save the image to your camera roll or follow the image link. Apple even places a subtle outline around the selected image (nice touch, Apple).
The great thing about this tip: it also works in Mail. Now you'll never be without your images. Now for that copy/paste (ahem, looking at you, Apple).
Here's a very handy feature of the iPhone 2.0 software. Previously, deleting many email messages at once was a real pain. You could either swipe across your messages one at a time (invariably selecting a few by accident), or enter edit mode and select a message, touch the Delete button and then touch the Confirmation button. Not exactly speedy.
The 2.0 software makes this much easier. First, touch the Edit button. Next, touch every message you want to delete. When you're through, touch the Delete button at the bottom of the screen.
Alternatively, you can use this method to bulk move messages.
With the advent of the new iPhone firmware 2.0, users who have installed it report that you are now able to easily take and share screenshots of your iPhone -- all without downloading any additional software. To take a screenshot, just hold down the home button while quickly pressing the sleep/wake button at the top of the phone. The screen will flash and an image will be saved in your Camera Roll.
You can easily share your screenshot by e-mailing it using the share option in the Photos app.
For more iPhone tips and tricks like this, check out the iPhone 101 section here on TUAW.
Recently, my iPhone was having issues. Specifically, it thought headphones were inserted when they weren't. I first noticed the problem as I was typing and didn't hear that familiar "click" that normally accompanies a key press.
I thought I had accidentally toggled the ringer mute button (which I seem to do often), but no, it was set to ring. I inserted some headphones and heard everything - the clicks, music, etc.
I placed a call and tried turning the speaker on and off to no avail. Next, I rebooted the phone. No dice. I connected it to my Mac and performed a sync with iTunes and still, there was no sound.
I reset the phone by holding down the power button and the home button. Still, there was no sound without headphones. At last, I got a can of compressed air and gave a couple of short blasts into the headphone port. That did it! The phone must have been interpreting the junk that had collected in there over the past year as headphones.
A simple solution that, hopefully, will save you some time.
Over at MacTips they have a nice tip which I figured would make for a good iPhone 101. If you find yourself needing to type an accented character (acutes, graves, umlauts, etc.), all you have to do is hold down the relevant key for a couple of seconds and voilà a nice pop-up menu will appear with the available choices. The trick works for a number of different characters besides the vowels (e.g. 'z' and '?') and seems to function as well on the iPod touch.
Call me fickle, but sometimes I don't want to hear any of the music I've got on my iPhone. What should I do when I'm away from my computer, itching for new music? Create a browser-based playlist.
The Internet Archive is a tremendous source of streaming music files (among other things) that play just fine on the iPhone. Here's how to set things up.
Create a new bookmark folder in Mobile Safari. I named mine "Rock."
Navigate to the Internet Archive, and find some music you'd like to listen to (I chose Smashing Pumpkins)
The Flash player at the top of the page will not work, but scroll down to the botto and click either of the "Mp3" files
A new page will open to play the file
Click "Done" at the top of the page, then touch the menu bar
Add a bookmark to the file to the "Rock" folder
Done! Add as many links as you like, and you've got a web-based playlist of tunes that aren't hogging storage space.
I did some traveling this summer (with two toddlers, so don't be envious). Certain that I'd need to conduct a search or two, I bookmarked my destinations on my iPhone, and you can do the same. Just follow the steps:
Launch Google Maps.
Enter the zip code of your destination city.
Once it has been found, create a bookmark.
Repeat for each stop you'll make.
Now, when you're jonesing for a venti iced green tea latte in a strange place, simply launch Maps, click Bookmarks and then your location. You'll be sippin' in no time.
When you simultaneously press the sleep/wake button and the volume button during a call on the iPhone, you'll immediately end that call and lock the screen.
Now, at the end of a conversation, you may give your iPhone a gentle squeeze and slip it right into your pocket.
Since it's so much fun to view photos on an iPhone, you'll want to sync your iPhoto library. However, even an 8GB phone can fill up quickly. Here's a tip for displaying your most recent photos and eliminating duplicates.
In iPhoto, create a smart album that finds your most recent photos:
From the File menu, select "New Smart Album..."
Set the 1st condition to "Date," and the 2nd to "Within the last...." I've selected 14 days.
Next, connect your iPhone and launch iTunes. Click the "Photos" tab and opt to sync only our smart album. Done! Now you've got a dynamically populated (and auto-purging) album that displays your most recent shots.
You may have sent photos taken with your iPhone to iPhoto. For some reason, iPhoto won't delete those photos after synchronization. Since our smart album found them, it's safe to nix their space-hogging counterparts and keep "Camera Roll" empty.
There's one aspect of the iPhone that's counter-intuitive - the camera.
Unlike nearly every camera ever made, the iPhone takes a picture when the "shutter button" is released, not pressed.*
I've gotten some nice snapshots, but only after I figured out my current process:
Press and hold the shutter button
Compose the shot
Release the button
Now, isn't that better?
*Yes, many digital cameras feature a "two-stage" process (half a press to focus, full to capture the image), but most take the photo upon a full press, not release, of the shutter button.
Here's a neat feature that almost works beautifully. If you've received a call from a number you don't recognize, go to "Recents" and touch its blue arrow. A window appears that lists the number as well as the geographic origin, based on area code. Pretty cool.
Of course, if a person purchased her phone in New York and them moved to Colorado, this information would be incorrect. Still, it could help you identify that "mystery caller."
When I activated my iPhone, I received a brand new phone number. The first time someone asked me for it, I felt a mild embarrassment. "Oops," I realized. "I don't know my own phone number."
If you find yourself in this situation, don't panic. Your iPhone itself can tell you what your number is.
The first place to look is in your contacts list. Touch "Phone" then "Contacts." Scroll to the very top of the list and you'll see "My Number..."
Or, touch "Settings" and then "Phone." Your number is displayed at the top of the screen.
Is that "Sent from my iPhone" message starting to get on your nerves? By default, every email sent from your iPhone gets appended by a signature specified in Settings > Mail > Signature. To clear out this signature entirely, delete all the text from the Signature text field. Your emails will lose that "Sent from my iPhone" tag.
Of course, if signatures don't particularly bother you, you might want to add a more personalized quote or even some contact information (although preferably not using unnecessary ASCII art). Or, you can put on your antipersonnel hat and start messing with people's minds, e.g. "Sent from my Blueberry." How do you intend to sign your emails?
Mobile Safari has always had a handy feature that i wished Mobile Mail would acquire. Apple must have read my mind, because it's now available.
Have you ever been using Safari on your 
Here's a very handy feature of the iPhone 2.0 software. Previously, deleting many email messages at once was a real pain. You could either swipe across your messages one at a time (invariably selecting a few by accident), or enter edit mode and select a message, touch the Delete button and then touch the Confirmation button. Not exactly speedy.
With the advent of the new iPhone firmware 2.0, users who have installed it report that you are now able to easily take and share screenshots of your iPhone -- all without downloading any additional software. To take a screenshot, just hold down the home button while quickly pressing the sleep/wake button at the top of the phone. The screen will flash and an image will be saved in your Camera Roll. 
Recently, my iPhone was having issues. Specifically, it thought headphones were inserted when they weren't. I first noticed the problem as I was typing and didn't hear that familiar "click" that normally accompanies a key press.
Call me fickle, but sometimes I don't want to hear any of the music I've got on my iPhone. What should I do when I'm away from my computer, itching for new music? Create a browser-based playlist.
I did some traveling this summer (with two toddlers, so don't be envious). Certain that I'd need to conduct a search or two, I bookmarked my destinations on my iPhone, and you can do the same. Just follow the steps:
When you simultaneously press the sleep/wake button and the volume button during a call on the iPhone, you'll immediately end that call and lock the screen.
Since it's so much fun to view photos on an iPhone, you'll want to sync your iPhoto library. However, even an 8GB phone can fill up quickly. Here's a tip for displaying your most recent photos and eliminating duplicates.
There's one aspect of the iPhone that's counter-intuitive - the camera. 
Here's a neat feature that almost works beautifully. If you've received a call from a number you don't recognize, go to "Recents" and touch its blue arrow. A window appears that lists the number as well as the 
When I activated my iPhone, I received a brand new phone number. The first time someone asked me for it, I felt a mild embarrassment. "Oops," I realized. "I don't know my own phone number."
