Tips and Tricks

By far one of my favorite new features in iPhone 3.0 is Spotlight. Those unfamiliar with the Mac technology, it's essentially a super fast, smart search system. In iPhone 3.0 Spotlight has been added to iPod, Notes, Mail, and Calendar, in addition to the Phone app. This means that you can search for a song in the iPod, a mail message in Mail, or appointment in Calendar. But here's where things get crazy awesome. Swiping to the left of the first home page (the little spotlight icon) will let you search through your entire iPhone. How awesome is that? In addition to results from those apps, Spotlight also finds apps for quick launching.

Keep reading for some awesome search-related tips!

Ever purchase an app on your iPhone and find out later that it's magically shown up in iTunes? This is because your iPhone automatically transfers new app purchases during a sync. But what happens if the apps in iTunes are lost? Turns out you can invoke the magic app sync anytime you want. Simply right-click your iPhone in the iTunes Devices section and choose "Transfer Purchases." Any application on your iPhone that isn't in iTunes will immediately be moved.

Of course you can re-download any app in iTunes for free, but then you already knew that. ;]

Lots of the incredibly welcome changes in iPhone 3.0 seem to be little changes and this one is sure to please you frequent texters. From any SMS/MMS message, an "Edit" button has been added to let you select individual messages for deletion or forwarding in another message. This one really comes in handy for those who like to hold onto those SMS conversations, except for that one embarrassing, drunken text you sent to that one girl. You know who you are.

Use wisely!

Moving icons to different pages on the Home screen seems to have always been an arduous task. We posted a tip about this very thing a while back, but the iPhone 3.0 update has made things even easier! Before the update, moving icons to a new page meant it would take up space on each page as you moved it across. Now, moving an icon and holding it at the edge of the screen will continue scrolling to the next page until you move it away. Give it a try! It's much better!

The most anticipated feature of the iPhone 3G S is arguably the ability to record video. It looks great, and you can post it to YouTube right from your phone! But how do you import the full-quality video? Mac users will probably say "iPhoto," but you may not want to open up such a big app for a quick import. The quickest way we know of is to use the Image Capture app which sees both photos and videos recorded on your iPhone. Just open it up, find the video, drag it into Finder, and there you go!

Windows users can get at their iPhone 3G S videos in Windows Explorer, similar to the way you import photos.

Check out a video we imported below!

Everyone knows that iPhone's keyboard comes with a full set of QWERTY keys, numbers, and punctuation, but you may not have realized that there's even more. Hidden underneath many of the keys are special character variations. To bring up a special character, simply tap and hold for a moment and select from the pop-up menu. For example, if you'd like to type café, simply type caf, hold E, and choose É from the menu.

There are tons of other special characters hidden behind both alphabetical keys and punctuation keys. Check 'em out!

The swipe to delete gesture is one of the most often used on the iPhone, but sometimes swiping to delete many emails can take time. With iPhone 2.0 Apple expanded Mail's "Edit" button to allow selection of multiple emails for deletion. You can also use this multiple selection mode to move emails to a specific folder. Just hit the "Edit" button! It's a basic feature, but it's one that everyone can use.

In the 2.2 update, Apple added Emoji support for customers living in Japan. Emoji is the Japanese equivalent of emoticons, only there are a ton more. More details here.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you feel about emoji) Apple has chosen to only allow Emoji in Japan although it is included in every copy of 2.2 and later. Clever hackers have since discovered ways of enabling them via jailbreak, but a clean no-hack method has recently been discovered; with the help of an app.

One of the lesser-known goodies included in iPhone 2.0 is the ability to use Wi-Fi while in Airplane Mode. To do this, simply enable Airplane Mode and then switch on Wi-Fi. The orange airplane icon will stay in the status bar and Wi-Fi will be enabled.

Apple says that the feature is good for those on Wi-Fi enabled planes, but it may come in handy if you're in an area with no cell reception (such as basement or college building).

In the latest iPhone software update (v2.2), Apple added a new shortcut to the Home button. Pressing the Home button from any Home screen will now bring you right back to your first home screen. This shortcut is great for those of you who just can't stop downloading apps.

For this one to work, you must already be at the Home screen.