Top iPhone Resource

Shriya and I use Gmail and Google Calendar extensively. iPhone’s native Calendar is nice but Google Calendar lets us access our events from our computers as well. Plus, I have tons of contacts already filled out in my Gmail that would be nice to have them in my iPhone.

With Google Calendar, you can also subscribe to other Calendar (CalDAV) compatible services like Remember the Milk, Anyvite, etc.

How to Sync Google Calendar with iPhone?

With this little tip, you can integrate Google Calendar right into your iPhone Calendar using Google Sync. I am going to assume you have upgraded to OS 3.0 and get to 2.2 later.

iPhone OS Version 3.0

1. Open Settings in iPhone
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Tap on Add Account
4. Select Microsoft Exchange

   

5. In the Email field, enter your full Gmail address
6. You can leave the Domain field empty
7. In Username, enter your full email address
8. In Password, enter your Google password
9. Hit Next and enter m.google.com in Server field

   

10. Press Next
11. Select the Google Services you want to Sync - only Calendar & Contacts supported at the moment
12. Choose ‘Keep on my iPhone‘ to keep your existing contacts and events in your iPhone.
13. And you are done!

Gotchas

• Google Calendar and Contacts will automatically sync if you have Push (Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data) enabled. Push settings can also drain your battery faster so play with it and see how your battery holds up with various intervals.
• You can choose which of your Google Calendars to Sync by going to http://m.google.com/sync in Safari
• You can only create 1 Exchange ActiveSync account. So if you already use one for work you are out of luck. Thanks Apple!
• After the Sync is done, you chose to see All Calendars or just specific Calendars in iPhone

  

• With iPhone OS 2.2, you won’t see the screen where you can chose to Keep your existing Contacts in iPhone. You have to heed the warning that you will lose your iPhone data and hit Sync twice.

Hope you were able to set up your Google Calendar and Contacts in your iPhone with these instructions. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to answer them.

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If you have used a previous generation iPhone, you are probably aware of this little trick.

If you are a new iPhone 3GS user, you might not have stumbled on this yet and will appreciate it.

While listening to music on your iPod (iPhone), if the screen locks out you don’t have to unlock the screen to skip, forward, pause etc. Just quickly press your Home button twice. The iPod screen will be overlayed in your locked screen. It lets you

• Skip to previous song
• Skip to next track
• Shows you album cover
• Adjust volume

If you use the Apple’s earphones, you can do this right in it. If you use some other earphones like I do, you might like this handy little way Apple has provided us.

Also, did you know that Apple has been renaming everything in their site from iPhone 3G S to iPhone 3GS? I like it. Do you have a tip to share of your own? Hit the comments section.

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The Compass has been touted as one of the big additions to the new iPhone 3GS and I was giving it a test drive at lunch today.

Some of you might already know this but I just stumbled across this tip and figured I’d share it if anyone else here is wondering about it.

Turn on Compass View in Google Maps

Compass itself is pretty neat when you hold it and see what direction you are facing. But, it is WAY more useful when turned on in Google Maps so you can see if you are actually facing the right direction while driving or walking with the help of Google Maps.

Initially I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the ‘lighthouse beam’ kind of animation. It turns out to be just a toggle of the same ‘current location’ button we are used to using. Just hit that button again and you will see it change to Compass view.

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iPhone OS 3.0 is a free software update bringing 100+ excellent new features to all iPhone models. With the announcement of iPhone 3GS, if you are confused on what features are exactly in your particular iPhone, help is here.

Apple has published a chart with a list of features and its compatibility with different iPhone models.

You can read more on iPhone OS 3.0 new features here. Also, the iPhone OS 3.0 User Guide will be your best bet to finding little buried in features.

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iPhone OS 3.0 has a lot of new features. But, I keep discovering little thoughts tweaks here and there. In fact, I had missed this one and came to know from Patrick of my favorite iPhone blog.

You are probably loving the copy, paste functionality much in OS 3.0. But, did you know instead of holding down the backspace button to delete characters, you can undo your whole typing in input fields by just shaking your iPhone.

This feature is definitely nifty but it would be super cool to have some sort of undo history function added to it. But, hey I welcome even this small but thoughtful add-on.

In fact, if you just copied and pasted a blob of text in the wrong place, just shake your iPhone to undo the whole paste.

Hi5 to Patrick for this tip!

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Apple has updated and posted the iPhone OS 3.0 User Guide (pdf link) online.

Get your hands on it now!

Here are a few posts that can help you find some cool iPhone OS 3.0 features that you weren’t aware of

• 100+ Hidden Features in iPhone OS 3.0
• AT&T WiFi auto-authentication on OS 3.0
• iPhone OS 3.0 plus 46 security bugs
• How To: See New Push Notifications Settings in iPhone OS 3.0
• The Push is On: Apple Turns on Push Notifications
• Big Update: Evernote for iPhone 3.0 is Here

Have a good reading time! I am awaiting my iPhone 3G S shipment to be delivered by Fedex today and will post our unboxing pictures later on.

If you got your iPhone 3G S already, post your thoughts in the comments. We wanna hear from you.

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Gmail has been making great strides these days. We just saw Gmail get offline access.

With so many of us using Gmail primarily as the email provider as well as to store and manage our contacts, it becomes hard to not have those contacts in your iPhone contact list.

Yes, you could open up Gmail and then try to find it but it can’t beat the ability to sync your Gmail contacts with iPhone without a lot of effort.

NuevaSync does just that. Nuevasync allows direct, over-the-air, native synchronization with public PIM and calendaring services including Google.

NuevaSync supports not just Gmail contacts but also

• Google Calendar for calendar events
• Google Contacts/Gmail contacts for contacts
• Plaxo for Contacts

NuevaSync supports the following devices

• Apple iPhone 2.0
• Apple iPhone 3G
• iPod Touch 2.0
• Windows Mobile based PDAs and smartphones

Support for push email is supposedly coming soon. The first time you sync with Nuevasync it could take a little while but after that it should only take a few seconds.

Gotcha’s for iPhone users

• If you can’t edit your calendar events after a sync, check your sync configuration email address and make sure it’s right
• If you found 2 copies of some contacts, it looks like a iPhone firmware issue but a resync should fix the duplicates.
• If your Google Calendars come up with a different color in iPhone, you have to change it in GCal as you can’t change it in the phone.

Also, check out the Apple-specific page at Nuevasync.

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Ok. This is a really cool trick I just found.

How would you like to be able to add music, videos, podcats from multiple machines to your iPhone or iPod Touch?

Normally you can sync media on iPhone with only one computer but most of us use multiples computers in a day but carry our iPhone around everywhere.

Lucky for us, Andrew Grant has figured out how to do this! Click over and check out his post on how to do this. It’s not really that hard and he has pictures to assist with the instructions.

Enjoy adding songs, video, podcasts to your iPhone from work and home!

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We all like to have our own custom ringtones for our cell phones. It kind of defines us in a way. Gives us some flair. Make a statement.

With iRinger, you can create a ringtone for iPhone from any audio or video file. It is amazing at the number of audio and video formats iRinger supports! It can extract audio out of video files and even Youtube videos.

Requirements for iRinger

• Works on Windows XP & Vista
• Requires iPhone firmware 1.1.2 or newer (supports iPhone 3G as well)
• iTunes 7.5 or newer
• standalone freeware - no installing/uninstalling

How to use iRinger

1. Import the audio or video file you want to convert
2. Choose the section of the audio for your ringtone
3. Optionally choose ringtone length, volume, fade in, face out, loop.
4. Optionally add audio effects such as: Delay, Flanger, Boost, Reverse, etc.
5. Preview the audio
6. Export the ringtone to iTunes to transfer to your iPhone. (no jailbreaking required). You could also export directly to iPhone using SCP/SFTP and skip iTunes.

Download iRinger - The iPhone Ringtone Factory!

Enjoy the new set of ringtones that you create for your iPhone. My favorite ringtone of anytime is teh screaming chimpanzee. Have you tried that?

[via Life Rocks 2.0]

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Here is a quick tip you are sure enjoy doing in your iPhone.

If you’d like to take a screenshot of whatever that’s on your iPhone, just do this:

1. Hold down the Home button
2. Press the Power/Sleep button at the top

The screen will flicker a second and then you will have the screenshot saved in your Camera Roll!

May be now you could post your iPhone Home screen at the iPhone Home Screen Flickr Group. If you have done so, hit us up in the comments with the link.

[via iPhone Hacks]

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MacRumors is reporting that the iPhone 2.0 Firmware 5A347 is available early. The download locationwas found by snooping through an XML file!

Before you start upgrading your iPhone firmware to 2.0, be aware that this upgrade will erase everything in your iPhone. So, make sure you fully sync with your iTunes 7.7 (make sure to upgrade to iTunes 7.7 first).

After you sync your current data, this firmware image should do a one time full media-backup before the upgrade, so make sure you have enough space in your pc or mac.

iPhone1,2_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw - download link

Note: You have to hold the Options key (mac) or the Shift key (pc) and then click on ‘Check for Updates’ button on iTunes 7.7. Then you have to manually point to the firmware image.

If you get stuck somwehere, read through the comments in the MacRumors post and you might find the fix. Also, Apple has updated the Updating and restoring iPhone and iPod Touch Software post.

This firmware should shortly be available via iTunes soon by Apple directly, if you’d rather wait.

But for the impatient, have at it and let us know what you find.

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If your boss denied your iPhone request because it can’t access your corporate Microsoft Exchange email server, you can get to it now with IceMail from IceWeb for $8.50 a month.

The best part of this is that your company sysadmin doesn’t have to do a thing to work. Check out IceMail for more details. They have a free 30-day trial so you have nothing to lose by trying it.

Even if Apple starts offering Activesync connectivity for iPhone, you will get the same service from IceWeb as well. I am not sure of the technicalities as I don’t use Microsoft Exchange based email. Nonetheless, a good news to a fellow user.

[via PC World]

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