Top 10 Apple iPhone 3G tips and tricks

“As the cliché goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Round 2 of the iPhone revolution brought fans a 3G-capable model with a built-in GPS radio—not to mention plenty of software enhancements that work on both the new model and the original version,” Jamie Lendino reports for PC Magazine.

“Of course, that means there’s more to learn. But that’s where we come in. We assume you already know how to make calls, surf the Web, synchronize your music and photos, and generally have a good time—but you want to learn some real shortcuts,” Lendino reports. “If that’s the case, here’s a list of our top tips and tricks for iPhone 2.0, geared toward more advanced users.”

PC Magazines’ Top 10 Apple iPhone 3G tips and tricks include:
1. Force-quit an application
2. Make reservations the easy way
3. Double-down with scrolling
4. Maximize battery life, part 1
5. Maximize battery life, part 2
6. Grab a screenshot
7. Get a bigger keyboard in Safari
8. Keep Safari’s address bar handy
9. Enter punctuation quickly
10. Ride the dot-com wave

Full article here.

21 Comments

  1. @meh

    Liar!

    It must be a slow news day. Aside from that these are some pretty useful tips. My favorites:

    Force-quitting (#1)
    Dimming on wake (#4)
    Using .org, .net, .edu pop up – very “Apple-esque” (#10)
    Holding down the SMS icon to enable MMS (VERY COOL)

  2. I wish there was a way to hide the home screen icons until I touched the screen. That way I can see a nice picture of my gf or a nice desktop pic all the time. “Wallpaper” is a misnomer to me.

  3. Agree w/ you Gil on the wallpaper thing.

    # 2 is not always true on all web sites. One reason I hope cut and paste is coming soon.

    # 6 is very cool. Use it a lot to email info from web sites.

  4. Another tip:
    It has been reported that some of the apps crash.
    Are you downloading them on the phone or in iTunes?
    According to the TWIT’s , downloading them from the phone causes crashiness.
    Download from within iTunes-supposedly fixes most of the problem.

  5. Here is another cool trick for the engineers out there. With the 2.0 software, the iPhone now has two calculators. A simple one when the iPhone is held up and a scientific calculator when you turn the iPhone 90 degrees.

  6. Interesting accidental discovery on my iPod Touch(w/ 2.0 update):

    If you have music going, but it is locked, or using any other application, you can Double-Click the home button and music controls will pop up. If you are in another application, you can use the ‘Music’ button to go straight to your Music application.

  7. As usual, NONE of these are iPhone 3G specific. They all apply to any iPhone running the current 2.0 firmware.

    Another terrible naming decision by Apple which is leading to confusion and misinformation. See “Macbook” vs “Macbook Pro.”

    Hey MDN – how about a note on this?

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