TUAW's going Back to School! We'll be bringing you tips and reviews for students, parents and teachers right up until the bell rings.

With students heading back to school around the country today, many are heading back with an iPhone (possibly a iPhone 3G, no doubt). In this post, I'm going to suggest a few iPhone applications that you can use to stay on task, and, of course, "make the grade." Most of these applications are free, considering that most students are low on money (especially college students).

Assignments (iTunes Link)
Assignments is an application that, as the name implies, allows you to keep track of your assignments and classes. This is perfect for both teachers and students that need to keep track of assignments in each class. Not only can you add an assignment with a due date/time and importance, but you can also add recordings. Being able to make a voice recording of your assignment is a quick way to make a reminder, etc.

The "Overview" tab allows you to see anything upcoming or due. You can sort by "All" or "Due Soon." You can also search through your assignments. In the "Assignments" tab, you can view all assignments sorted by class. The "Notes" section allows you to quickly jot a note, add a title, and add a date/time.

Overall, this application performs smoothly and works well when adding/deleting assignments and classes. You can view screenshots of Assignments.app in our gallery. Assignments sells for $5.99 (US) at the iTunes App Store.

VoiceNotes (iTunes Link)
VoiceNotes is a plain and simple way to quickly record a quick note, or even a lecture (just make sure you have enough space on your iPhone). Tapping on "Quick Voice Note" will start recording immediately, but is limited as to the length of the recording. If you tap on the + button at the top, you will be given more recording length.

VoiceNotes allows you to sync notes back to your computer using some additional software provided by the developer. Overall, this is a solid app and can definitely be used for the quick "remember to bring these books to class tomorrow" voice notes.

You can download VoiceNotes for free from the iTunes App Store.

To Do (iTunes Link)
One of our fellow TUAW-ers developed this application, and we can't get over its ease of use and flexibility in creating a simple to-do list. With To Do, you can quickly and easily add a to-do, set priority (and order), and even add a note.

To Do will even allow you to see how many tasks have yet to be completed, right from the home screen. With To Do, you will never forget about that writing assignment for English class. Best of all, this application is on a college student's budget: It's absolutely free!

Camera.app (Built-in)
Never underestimate the power of the built-in camera on your iPhone. If you find that your instructor erases the board way too fast, or if you need to capture a photo of the current slide on the screen, then just get out your iPhone. 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... clicks and you're done! A picture saved in memory, and you didn't even have to write anything. You can also combine Camera with Evernote (iTunes link) to create more structured notes or geocoding around your photos -- great for architecture students or for budding meteorologists.


Did we miss something? Do you have another application that you like/use, but didn't on the list? The party doesn't stop with the post, it continues in the comments below. Be sure to share your favorite iPhone applications to help students "make the grade."

You've run the TIFF exploit jailbreak and your iPhone or iPod touch now has Installer.app on your main page. So now what? Here are some tips and ideas for you.

Add Community Sources. Most third party applications are found under Community Sources in Installer.app. Until you add this feature, you won't see most of the dozens and dozens of available applications from repositories like SMXY and Conceited Software.

Try out some great apps. My personal favorites include my own Voice Notes recorder (for iPhone only), Apollo IM instant messaging client, and Mobile Colloquy for irc. There are productivity apps, games, and utilities, all available for your mobile device.

Add direct file access. Install the BSD subsystem and (in Community Sources) Open SSH (both from NerveGas). Once you've installed ssh, you can use any sftp client to transfer files onto and off of your unit. On the Mac, you can also install MacFuse and sshfs to gain Finder access to your units. Remember that the new iPhone and iPod touch 1.1.1 password is "alpine", not "dottie". Many GUI sftp clients may not see the entire directory tree. In this case, you may want to enable afc2.

Know when things go wrong. The latest Installer.app has been hammered by new users. If you get a "package" error when trying to install, just do a re-install. You may need to uninstall first, depending on the progress when things failed. If you touch an app icon and it launches, pauses and quits, make sure you've installed the BSD subsystem. Failing to install BSD is the number one reason most app launches fail.

Know about restoring. If you ever change your mind about a jailbreak, just restore your iPhone or iPod touch using iTunes. Assuming you haven't unlocked, your iPhone or touch will be identical to one shipped from a factory.

When things slow down A number of people have reported system slow-downs after jailbreaking. Unfortunately, a roughly equal number have reported the same problem without jailbreaking. If this happens to you, just restore your iPhone or touch and re-jailbreak.

OMG, OMG, OMG restore failed This isn't that uncommon. Try restoring again once or twice. If iTunes fails to see the iPod or iPhone, google for iphuc dfu mode.

Although I knew that the 1.1.1 firmware update introduced more attachment viewing support, I didn't realize until now that it added AMR playback. AMR, if you don't recall, refers to Adaptive Multi-rate Compression. It's the audio data compression format used by the iPhone for both voice memos and (if you've installed my Voice Notes application) voice recording. AMR is used primarily to store spoken audio.

So why is this big news? Well, if you're very very patient and you don't mind waiting for long gaps within a conversation, you can now use your iPhone as a very low-end push-to-talk device. By this I mean, you can install VoiceNotes and use it to record short messages. You can then email those short messages to a friend and they can play it back on their iPhone. To respond, they do the same: record and email.

This is obviously a long way from VOIP but as a stop-gap measure it works pretty well. I tested out a voice-only conversation the other evening and, while slow, the recording and playback quality was just fine for communicating.

Right now, the slowest part of the process involves addressing the message in Mobile Mail. If people show an interest, I'm considering either updating VNotes or writing an app that allows you to add the recipient's email once and then handles the addressing bit. Let me know in the comments.