iPhone Life - Best Apps, Top Tips, Great Gear

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Organize “mobile” Web sites into special folder

By Rich Hall

As the number of iPhone and other smartphone users increases, more and more Web sites are offering “mobile” versions of their Web pages. Because these pages have a simpler design and fewer graphics, they require less bandwidth to download. It’s true that Safari can display almost any Web page, but it will download these mobile pages more quickly and you’ll have to do less zooming and scrolling to access the information. Save Web sites optimized for the iPhone in a special “MobileSites” bookmark folder.

App Updates and Upgrades

By Rich Hall

Periodically, developers will “update” their software to fix minor problems and add features. If you’ve already purchased an application, updates for it are free. Developers will also release software “upgrades,” which are considered new applications that may have to be purchased by existing users.

Whenever you access the App Store, it checks to see if updates are available for the apps you have installed and displays the number of updates available in a red circle superimposed over the corner of the App Store icon. If an update is available, the update screen will appear in App Store.

Free up memory to improve performance

By Rich Hall

 There are two types of memory on the iPhone and iPod touch: Storage memory and RAM. If you download a lot of music and videos and install a lot of third-party apps, you can run low of storage memory, especially on the 8 GB devices. One of the things you can do is to delete third-party apps, music, and videos when you are no longer using them.

Both devices have 128 MB of RAM, which is used to run the OS and applications. Some users have complained of slowdowns and other problems associated with not enough RAM. Fortunately, the iPhone and iPod touch will warn you if you are low on memory. If you receive one of these warnings asking you to do something, do it immediately—don’t put it off.

How to Block or Allow Pop-ups on Safari on Your iPhone

By Rich Hall

If you've been having trouble with pop-ups on your iPhone whenever you try to browse online, you're probably hoping for a way to block pop-ups on Safari. Luckily, your iPhone does have a way to disable pop-ups in Safari so that you don't have to deal with these annoying interruptions anymore. Conversely, you may want a website to be pop-up enabled but realize that the pop-up blocker on your iPhone is stopping pop-ups you actually need. Let's get started learning how to disable pop-ups and enable them again in Safari on your iPhone so you can browse the web in peace. (Note that this article doesn't cover how to disable in-app rating requests on the iPhone; you will need to do that in the App Store settings.)

Additional Tags: 
iphone pop-ups
safari pop-ups

Apple may let you share your apps with friends

By Jim Karpen

An interesting article in Business Week says that Apple is developing tools for developers that would let you share your app with friends. They'd have to pay for it, of course. But instead of going to the App Store, your friends may be able to use Bluetooth and the new peer-to-peer function of iPhone 3.0 to get it directly from you. And you'd get a commission. It's a great idea. Why not broaden the ways people can get apps, while still retaining control?

Wall Street Journal answers common questions about iPhone 3

By Jim Karpen

The Wall Street Journal does an excellent job of giving you an overview of the imminent iPhone 3.0 software. This isn't rumor. They clearly answer common questions related to upgrading, using the phone as a wireless modem (aka tethering), Bluetooth options, and more. The article says that first-generation iPhone users will be able to upgrade, but that not all of the functionality will work. The upgrade will again be $10 for iPod Touch users.

Summer - A Good Time for Review

By Anonymous

Getting a child to review the multiplication tables over the summer is not an easy task. But, a game that your child can do while waiting for appointments or while you shop might make it easier. 24x7digital has developed an app called TimesTables (v. 1.1) for the iPhone or iPod Touch. The challenge is to see how many multiplication problems your child can get right in the fastest amount of time. 

Yahoo app adds voice search

By Jim Karpen

The Yahoo! app for the iPhone is in the News category in iTunes, which is a bit odd, since the app does so many things. Most recently the company added voice search to its app, so that you can speak your queries. (Voice search has been available in Google Mobile App for some time.) In addition to offering search, Yahoo's app offers news, e-mail (Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, or AOL), status updates from Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, RSS feeds, Yahoo Calendar, Address Book, and Messenger — and much more.

Review: Treasures Of Montezuma

By Eric Pankoke

The reality is that match 3 games - the genre made famous by the game Bejeweled - are currently a dime a dozen in the App Store.  So what does a developer need to do to make their take on the match 3 game stand out from the crowd?  I'd say that taking lessons from Treasures Of Montezuma would be a great start.  I have several of the hotly anticipated iDevice titles that have come out over the past couple of months sitting on my device, yet I find myself continually drawn to playing TOM instead.  To me that speaks to both the addictive nature of the genre and the creativity the designers employed to make TOM a match 3 experience unlike most others on the iDevice.

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