“Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gadget in your hand?”
Your iPhone 4S is pretty easy to command — a tap here, a swipe there, and you’re on your way. However, you can use the “hidden” commands on your iPhone to do things faster and easier. These shortcuts, iPhone-related websites, navigational tips, and pointers on how to use Siri can help you get the most from your iPhone right away.
Click to view: iPhone 4S All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet – For Dummies.
Your mobile office | Get real work done on your smartphone.
By Joe Hutsko
If you’re a smartphone owner, you may already think of your ever-present gadget as your number one business partner. Besides sending and receiving email and text messages not to mention making and answering phone calls, of course, smartphones equipped with a video-conferencing feature such as FaceTime on iPhone, or Skype on both iPhone and Android let you meet virtually face-to-face with clients without spending money on travel by plane, train or automobile.
Read the full article: Your mobile office.
Getting Green With Gadgets
By Joe Hutsko
Some tips on minimizing your impact on the planet while maximizing the green that stays in your wallet in your wallet.
Turn to pages 104 & 105 in Gravy | volume 1, issue 2 | Summer 2011
or
View the two-page PDF here: Getting Green With Gadgets | Joe Hutsko | Gravy | Summer 2011.
Smart apps, smarter you
By Joe Hutsko
Smartphones are called “smart” because they do so much more than ordinary cellphones. Besides making and receiving calls and text messages, or snapping pictures and videos, smartphones let you do things you typically do on your computer—albeit on a Lilliputian scale. Pocketing either of the two most popular mainstream smartphone platforms—iPhone or Android—can often liberate you from having to haul a notebook computer to accomplish everyday tasks using your smartphone’s suite of built-in applications, or apps.
Continue reading: Smart apps, smarter you | August 2011.
My first story for TechCrunch is up:
Forceful Prediction: Apple Sunlight-Friendly Displays Would Scare The Daylights Out Of Competition
With nary a peep on the possibility of Apple baking a seeable-in-sunlight transflective display into the rumored 11.6” MacBook Air that’s expected to come floating up from the Pulpit of Jobs at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” next week, I’d like to make a pretty safe prediction (read: offer unasked-for advice): An Apple-anything with such a display would make mobile-warriors’ and tree-huggers’ hearts flutter, and competitors’ hearts shudder…
Read the full story: TechCrunch | Forceful Prediction: Apple Sunlight-Friendly Displays Would Scare The Daylights Out Of Competition
Last night my friend (and Flip Video For Dummies co-author) Drew and I crashed out in front around my iPad to watch John Cassavettes’ brilliant film “Husbands” (1970). Both of us were fading to black before reaching The End so we opted to pause and finish watching another night.
Drew this morning was saying how it would be cool if the Netflix app was available for the iPhone too so he could finish watching on the train, and low and behold, that feature (plus iPhone touch streaming) was added to the app today.
Key features of the Netflix app include:
Download the Netflix app from the iTunes App Store here: Netflix.
While everyone’s following the blogs covering Apple’s announcements today, I checked iTunes to see if there might be an iPhone update available before the show’s over.
Low and behold, I’m downloading the iPhone OS 3.1 Software Update and installing it on my iPhone 3G as I write this.
Here is what appears in the dialog after you click Download, or Download and Install:
iPhone OS 3.1 Software Update
This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
iPhone
iPhone 3G
iPhone 3GS
The update completed just as I finished writing this post, and now when I check Settings > General > About I see Version 3.1 7C144) and Carrier AT&T 5.0. Stay tuned for more details.
It happens all the time: You’re using an iPhone app and you accidentally press the Home button, which takes you home whether you like it or not. Here’s an easy trick to undo an accidental Home key press:
Keep the Home button held down, then touch and hold on the screen for two seconds then let go of the Home button. You stay in the app rather than go home.
After accidentally knocking my original iPhone off my desk, which caused the glass screen to smash into a pretty spiderweb-like pattern that, thanks to my Invisible Shield screen protector, allowed me to continue using the smart phone as I stood in line to buy an iPhone 3G when it went on sale the next day, I decided it was time to surround the new one with a protective case.
Although I initially went with InCase’s leather-wrapped Slider Elan, I later chose the InCase black Slider (pictured on the left) as my iPhone 3G’s protective partner. The case’s tight fit adds minimal thickness to the 3G, and its lightly rubberized finish provides just enough grip to prevent accidental sleights of the hand, so to speak. I’ve also used Griffin’s Clarifi for iPhone 3G, but only on the couple of occasions when I needed to take a close up snapshot, thanks to the Clarifi’s built in lens, which corrects the iPhone camera’s farsightedness.
InCase recently sent me their new Bamboo Slider for iPhone 3G, and having just finished Green Gadgets For Dummies, I welcomed the new model’s reduced carbon footprint, thanks to the case’s composition of 40 percent recycled bamboo, 60 percent polycarbonate construction.
InCase says the bamboo pulp used to create the case comes from “reclaimed bamboo shards of materials such as construction scaffolding and chopsticks.”
In hand, the Bamboo Slider feels like plastic, though a deep whiff of the case’s backside betrays plywoody hints that evoke memories of under-construction new homes and lumberyards.
Bottom line: The inclusion of bamboo is an interesting novelty, but the case’s less grippy finish was reason enough for me to stick with the lightly rubberized Slider that’s served me well since acquiring my iPhone 3G.
The Pogo Stylus is an aluminum stick with a small and fuzzy hairdo on one end that can be used in lieu of your fingertip to interact with iPhone and iPod touch screens.
The stylus comes with a slide-on holder to keep the stick close at hand yet isn’t exactly comfortable to hold in because it must be positioned midway or below rather than near the upper half of the iPhone (doing so presses on the volume keys, a no-no).
While my iPhone 3G responds to my fingertip with the lightest touch, the Pogo Stylus requires a firmer press to get the iPhone to recognize it. Bottom line: Unless you’re sporting fingernails of the Cat Woman variety that prevent you from making contact with your device, hang on to your $20 and let your own fingers do the touching.
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