macosxhints.com iPhone tips

Install more than 180 apps on the iPhone/iPod touch

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:30:53 -0800

The latest version of the iPhone OS allows you to have 11 pages of 16 icons, plus the four permanent icons at the bottom of the screen, for a total of 180 apps. You can actually have more than 180, though only 180 icons will be visible.

To get to the invisible apps, just do a search (press Home from the home screen), and type part of the non-visible app's name. I don't know how many of these invisible apps you can have, as I have not tried more than three so far.

[robg adds: As far as I know, the limit is simply based on the available space on your device. Long before that point, though, you may run into a limit with your ability to remember the names of all the invisible apps.]

Sync only Address Book entriess with phone numbers to iPhone

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:30:02 -0700

I used to have a mobile phone which I synced all the time with iSync, where there was an option to only sync contacts with phone numbers. After getting an iPhone, I noticed this didn't exist. So why not use a Smart Group to do the job? Because they don't sync with the iPhone. But I also wanted everyone's emails and other details.

So I wrote up an AppleSript that updates a regular Address Book group with only people who have phone numbers. This worked great, then after a while, I wanted some numbers to not show up (people you want to keep in your phone but will never call, or whose name you don't want to see every time you scroll down your list). I created a group called Not Phone, and modified my script so that they are removed from the Phone group.

This script will create the groups for you. Warning: if you have a group called Phone already in existence, I suggest renaming the group (or changing the group name that the script uses...

Easily save Flickr app photos as wallpaper images

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:30:01 -0700

If you want to save a photo from the Flickr iPhone app as your wallpaper image, here's an easy way to do it. Find the photo you'd like to use in Flickr, tap it to view it on a black background, and then use the iPhone's screen shot feature (hold down Home, then tap the top button) to save the photo to your photo library.

Finally, open the Photo app, find your saved image, tap it, and set it as your wallpaper.

[robg adds: You can use this same method to easily convert any photo in any other app to wallpaper, as long as you can display it such that it takes up the entire screen.]]

Create personalized verbal alerts for the iPhone

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:30:03 -0700

Want to wake up or be alerted by a friendly voice? In OS 3.1, use the Voice Memo app to record your own wake-up or alert message. Sync the iPhone to your computer, then look in your iTunes Library under Voice Memos.

The recording will have a nonsense numerical string, followed of the ".m4a" suffix, for a name. Copy the file and change its name to Whatever_You_Want.m4r, and drop it into Ringtones in iTunes. Presto -- you've got a personalized alert to use for ring tones, Alarm Clock, and any other app that has access to the ring tone list.

Lock iPhone SMS in portrait mode

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:30:02 -0700

Have you discovered that using the iPhone's SMS app in landscape mode, while laying down, isn't all that you wanted it to be? I've found a simple fix that only requires you to have five or more SMS conversations in the app.

Open the SMS app, open any of the conversations, and scroll up and down. Repeat for the other four or more conversations. This will lock the screen from rotating when the iPhone goes on its side.

How to organize photo albums on iPhone/iPod touch

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:30:04 -0700

Before iTunes 9, when you wanted to organize the order of the photo albums on your iPhone or iPod touch, you could simply drag the photo albums up and down from within iTunes when your device was connected to your computer.

Now, with iTunes 9, you can no longer drag the albums around from within iTunes. You must rearrange the albums to their desired display order in iPhoto, and that order will be reflected in your device.

This tip has been tested in Leopard (10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6).

Use 'shake to shuffle' mode from mini-player

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:30:03 -0700

While playing around with my iPhone last night, I found that the 'shake to shuffle' feature will work from the mini-player that pops up on your screen after a double-tap of the home button. To enable the mini player (i.e. the iPod controls), go to Settings » General » Home Button, and select iPod controls.

The only issue I have had was that when I really shake the iPhone, it goes to landscape mode and freaks out.

Identify iPhone app name from source file in Finder

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:30:03 -0700

I have over 2,000 iPhone apps now (nearly all of them free) saved on my hard drive, and I decided to offload some of them to secondary storage to free up some of the 8GB of disk space my iTunes folder was taking up. My initial delete process was to highlight an app in the Applications section of iTunes, hit Command-Delete and select Move to Trash from the pop-up dialog to put it in the Trash, then immediately rummage through the Trash to recover the file into a folder that I would later archive.

This works, but I felt I should probably optimize to get rid of the larger unused apps first (some of which are over 100MB on disk). I found that I could select any of the apps and hit Command-R on it to show me the file in Finder. The problem is that I wanted to go the other way -- sort that folder by size, and look at the fattest apps.

And here's where the problem lies ... the filename might be XMAS TREE, but the application in iTunes is Christmas Tree....

Improve battery life for jailbroken iPhones

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:30:01 -0700

Problem: The battery on my jailbroken iPhone drains quite rapidly (requiring a recharge every other night, or even more frequently).

Diagnosis: A number of App Store and Cydia applications report usage data surreptitiously to online servers. Aside from the invasion of privacy, such activities also keep the iPhone and network connections active, requiring energy and draining the battery.

Remedy: Install Saurik's PrivaCY, read this analysis, and then install a new /etc/hosts file on the iPhone.

Requirements: A jailbroken iPhone.

Tested: iPhone 3GS (US), OS 3.0.1. I have not tested each of the above remedies separately.

Results: Before, ould drain about 50% of the battery on a day with (primarily) data usage. After: Drains 5% to 10% a day.

Watch movies with subtitles on the iPhone

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700

A little-known feature of the iPhone is its ability to display subtitles on movides. To do this, you just need the free programs MKVtools, SubCleaner, and Subler, and a conversion program -- I recommend FilmRedux. Once those are installed on your Mac, do this:

Convert the file to a raw, unsubtitled .MP4 with FilmRedux
Extract the UTF8 subtitle file (.srt) from the original file with MKVtools
Clean up the .srt with subcleaner
Merge the .mp4 and the .srt together in subler

Then sync the movie over to your iPhone. Next to the rewind button, a new subtitle button will appear.

Add additional From addresses to Mail on the iPhone

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700

I have multiple addresses associated with my IMAP account (ebay@, groups@, shopping@, etc.). When sending mail from my iPhone, the addresses associated with your account can be selected by tapping on the From field, and choosing an entry from the pop-up rolodex.

Unfortunately, while the iPhone's Mail preferences app supports multiple comma-separated From addresses in the account information (just as OS X Mail does), there is no easy way to add them. Any multiple addresses that were present on the computer when the iPhone was originally set up will have been added at that time. However, when you go to the Address field of your account, only legal SMTP characters are available for typing input, so there is no way to type the comma separator.

Now under iPhone OS 3.0, copy/paste to the rescue! To create your first additional address, just temporarily edit the Description field immediately below Address. This is a full-text field and you can enter your new address with...

Launching radio streams in iTunes via iPhone's Remote

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700

I run iTunes from a server tucked away at the back of a closet, streaming to Airtunes speakers, and I use iPhone's Remote software to control everything. I love it, except: There's no obvious way to control iTunes radio streams from Remote. So when I want to listen to the radio (say, every single morning to hear NPR news), I have to climb into the closet and launch it from iTunes there.

My solution: Create a playlist in iTunes for the radio stream(s) I listen to regularly. Then they show up as playlists in Remote on the iPhone.

Restore icon organization when restoring an iPhone

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:30:01 -0700

When restoring iPhone from a backup, icons are not restored as they were at the time of the backup. This is due to the fact that the applications are restored after the settings, and the system does not check where an application was located from a previous installation.

There's a simple fix for that, though: do a second restore from backup. It will be fast, because no data needs to be transferred, so just the settings will be applied, including the position information for existing applications.

[robg adds: I just restored from a backup on my replacement iPhone 3G, and the icons are all in the right spots. I honestly don't recall if I did the restore twice or not, but I may very well have -- I know I had some issues after the first restore, so it's quite possible I did it again. If anyone can confirm if two restore cycles are needed to restore app positions, please comment.]

Place Google Voice calls directly from Contacts on iPhone

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:30:02 -0700

There has been a lot of controversy concerning Google Voice and the iPhone. Here is an AppleScript that allows you to place Google Voice calls directly from your iPhone's Contacts/Phone app.

The script works by adding numbers to contacts in Address Book that dial your contact via Google Voice. The new number is prefixed with your Google Voice number, your pin, and the number two. It dials into your Google Voice number and places the call to your contact.

The advantage of this method over apps like GV Mobile or the web is that you don't need a data connection to place a call, and you don't need to answer the ring-back. The downside is that waiting for the pauses and all the dialing is a bit ...

Fix battery percentage icon after undoing iPhone jailbreak

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:30:01 -0700

Like many people, I jailbroke my 3G out of curiosity. I didn't find anything useful or interesting enough to keep my phone that way, so I restored my phone to factory default settings. I did notice though, that if the battery percentage display was enabled (via sbsettings or bossprefs) while jailbroken, it will remain enabled through a factory reset.

To disable, I had to re-jailbreak the phone, hide the battery percentage display, back up via iTunes, then un-jailbreak (incarcerate?), and restore from backup.

One way to get real push news on the iPhone

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700

As far as I know, there is only one news app (AP Mobile) that pushes news to your phone. However, they only push really big stores to the phone, which means only two or three updates a week. In my mind, that defeats the purpose of push news.

The other option seemed to be to sign up for loads of email lists from wsj.com, cnn.com, etc. This gives lots of duplicates and since it's email, it cannot compete with the ease of a push (or text) notification on the lock screen. I deleted AP Mobile, unsubscribed from my mailing lists, and came up with this solution:

Add @BreakingNews to the list of folks you're following on Twitter.
On your twitter.com page, enable device updates for @BreakingNews (on your Following page), and add your iPhone number.

This give me non-duplicated breaking news pushed to my iPhon...

Use iCal Server's delegated calendars on the iPhone

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:30:00 -0700

As discussed in this thread on Apple Discussions, the iPhone doesn't support delegated calendars served by the iCal server part of OS X Server. I believe the following is a usable workaround.

If you are set up as a delegate of someone's calendars, you can trick the iPhone into giving you full access to those calendars. For each delegate, you need a separate CalDAV account set up in the iPhone which is a pain but doable for small companies.

Set up the CalDAV account with your server and your login information. Put anything you want for the description, but I suggest the name of the calendar user you are gaining access to, such as Jane. When done, go back into the account details and click Advanced Settings. Click the Account URL and change the end of the URL from yourname to Jane (in my example, use the short name of the person you're accessing).

...

Store complex rich text in Mail.app and iPhone Notes

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700

Perhaps not for you, but for me it was a surprise that find that I could copy and paste complex portions of a web page (like the table from this page) in Safari into a note in Mail.app.

From there, the complex note will sync nicely onto the iPhone -- where you can then float it above the yellow Notes background to see the entire content.

Hidden characters on the iPhone 3.0 Arabic keyboard

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700

The Arabic keyboard is supported natively in iPhone OS 3.0. However, there are some missing characters like 'hamza' (ء), and different shapes for some, such as 'alef' (أ ,آ), etc. To see these characters, you have to press and hold on the on the plain 'alef' (ا), then you will see a list of similar shapes. You can also do the same thing for 'Ya`' (ي) to get (ى).

Urdu and Perian can also see their extended characters for 'v' -- press and hold (ف) and, for 'ch', press and hold (ج), etc.

Easier correction for iPhone typos in iPhone OS 3.0

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:30:00 -0700

Since the release of 3.0, cut-copy-paste has been an amazing feature. I have used and abused it from SMS to Safari and beyond. I will claim I can type up a storm (no pun intended) on my iPhone and will generally leave characters behind, or find words that the auto-correct thinks are different than I do. To prevent confusion, I always double-check and correct my typos.

With the iPhone, you have always been able to press and hold and obtain the magnifying class to get precisely where you want in the text. In 3.0, I have noticed a little lag when doing so (and it may be my 3G; who knows) and trying to edit my text. As such, the easier correction method here is to double-tap the incorrectly spelled word and then start back over clean.

This hint can also be used for mass delete or mass replacement of text.