iphone tricks & tips

May 16, 2008 8:13 AM

I got a new iphone (en route),what do I need to know?Any tips and/or suggestion/sites?
posted by femmme to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Lifehacker has a comprehensive list of apps, suggestions on pimping your iPhone. Hope that helps.
posted by defenestratedego at 8:21 AM on May 16 [2 favorites]

seconding bitdamaged... if you havent cracked the plastic I would try to quiet the iLust until the new ones are out in June.
posted by zennoshinjou at 8:30 AM on May 16

As snarky as it is, I have to agree with bitdamaged. The new model is going to have 3G (high-speed data rates), which might not seem like a big deal now. But you might be bitter when it's ubiquitous in a year or so. On the other hand, a lot of people suspect that the monthly rates for the new iphone are going to be higher to offset the increased data usages, so if you're not overly concerned about watching laughing baby youtube videos on the street, you might be better off going with what you got.
posted by ictow at 8:34 AM on May 16

Yah I would return it... 3G is coming very soon.
posted by pwally at 8:37 AM on May 16

Yup, return it. Even if they don't add 3G or GPS, it's almost guaranteed that they'll announce some noteworthy upgrade at WWDC in June. It's under a month away, I'd wait it out.
posted by SamuelF at 8:59 AM on May 16

I disagree with everyone saying to return it based solely upon my rationale for buying one this week as well.

Knowing 3G is almost around the corner, it still doesn't matter if your intention is to unlock it and use it on a network like TMobile. They use different frequencies for 3G and you'll never get 3G speeds if it only has the radio for AT&Ts 3G network. Plus, 3G is a huuuuge battery waster and there is supposedly a switch to turn it off and on for short use.

GPS is also a rumor. You got me on this one. This is the one feature I wish I could have in the current implementation. However, just to find your location... my wife's iPhone can triangulate fine. But if you want turn by turn directions, you'll want a dedicated NMEA radio.

iPhone's 2.0 software will work on the new and old so your purchase will have the majority of the new features seen in the upcoming iPhone.

And the kicker... if you just bought the refurb from AT&T, you have 30 days to return it. I suggest not opening it and waiting until June 9th. Jobs will have his keynote speech at WWDC and hopefully the SDK and new iPhone will be the major announcement. Then, you can wager whether it is worth it to get a new iPhone or keep your purchase. I highly doubt the price is going to drop to $199 subsidized by AT&T without some kind of instant activation scheme. There's also been rumors that the price is going to go up. But, rumors are just rumors....
posted by timmins at 9:33 AM on May 16

timmins: "3G is a huuuuge battery waster"

3G (~1800/800 Kbps) has worked fine on my Sprint phone for the last year, and I can get several hours of non-stop bittorrenting and lose maybe 50% of the battery, leaving hours left for talk. Obviously, intermittent data use uses less. The real eater of battery is backlight, and to a lesser degree, WiFi if I jack up the phone's transmit or turn it to AP (broadcast) mode.

Right now many iphoners believe 3G battery will suck, because that is what Apple has been telling them forever. That message is going to change very soon (cf, "Megahertz Myth"). I would wait for the 3G model. With 3G cool things become possible, like video VOIP, endless music/video/TV streaming, and really good remote file access.
posted by meehawl at 9:49 AM on May 16

Sorry, I typed NMEA and meant SiRF GPS radio.
posted by timmins at 9:49 AM on May 16

meehawl: OK, let's look to a test with a non-iPhone done by Anandtech:

Without a doubt, current 3G implementations do require more space and consume more power than simply outfitting a phone with support for EDGE. Using the Samsung Blackjack as an example, turning on 3G reduces battery life by around 25% under web/email use. The biggest impact of all is, surprisingly enough, talk time; with 3G enabled, the Blackjack's talk time is cut in half, with absolutely no benefit realized from the higher bandwidth standard.

With rumors of the iPhone slimming down from its already thin form factor, I'm lead to believe the battery and space being the biggest constraint. With a non-replace-on-the-fly battery, you're dancing with fire. It does use more battery and it does take away from talk time. That's why there's a switch and it doesn't pertain to only the iPhone. I'm not saying I don't welcome the ability to get 3G speeds but there are some inheritable downsides. Plus, wasn't there a test where browser rendering engine is more important than downstream speeds? I do recall a Nokia S60 vs. EDGE 2.5 Safari test showing what seemed to be relatively comparable download and render times.
posted by timmins at 9:55 AM on May 16

I don't have a blackjack, but I know the Blackjack I was notorious for poor battery life. The newer Blackjack 2 model is thicker, with a bigger battery and presumably better life. Either way, the Blackjack managed to underwhelm a great many people!

My phone (HTC Titan) uses CDMA which has different power management than GSM. I do notice that in poor reception areas the battery runs down faster if I leave the 3G turned on, presumably because it's boosting signal more. In some cases, with very bad reception, I usually just go to WiFi and use Skype Mobile or fring to call out over TCPIP and that seems to get better results (and higher quality).

Comparing a generic "S60" device against an iphone will tell you something about that phone's CPU and browser implementation versus Apple's, but not much more. I am not personally familiar with Symbian devices. However I do know that Windows Mobile devices use an array of different CPUs, with speeds varying from 200-450Mhz (or 650MHz if you are using the VGA-size devices). And browser experience depends on available RAM, background tasks, and which browser (the major ones are PIE, Opera Mobile, Opera Web but there are about a dozen more available). I did do my own tests, where I found my 400 MHz browser rendering was definitely CPU limited, because opening some 5 MB web graphics-rich web pages took more than twice as long on the phone versus a laptop tethered to the phone and using the phone's 3G data connection for input.

From my personal experience of my friend's iphones, when they have WiFi access, everything is good. But if they have to use EDGE on a website that is not iphone-friendly or pre-configured, access is relatively slow for any modern 300K+ web page when compared to my phone. For complex, heavy web pages (for example, MySpace or Facebook photo/video pages) the difference can be measured in minutes. It's obvious that the limit is the connection speed because touches running on WiFi do a much better job.
posted by meehawl at 11:51 AM on May 16

As a counterpoint to the 3G and battery life. There is a 3G switch in the Iphone 2.0 FW, so I wouldn't worry about that.

If you plan on activating it on ATT w/ the 2 year contract, I'd definately return the one you just bought and wait for the new one. It may have more than 3G, possible GPS and 2nd camera for video are rumored.

If you're just going to unlock it for another provider, then you have the choice of saving $150 on an 1st gen vs the new features of the 2nd gen.
posted by wongcorgi at 12:49 PM on May 16

can I have my snarky comment back now? :-)

apologies to the poster for the threadjacking, I too lust for a cool new iPhone but Im forcing myself to wait patiently until the June (expected) release.
posted by bitdamaged at 4:48 PM on May 16

Some great sites (optimized for the iphone)

http://mobile.metafilter.com/
http://www.instapaper.com
http://mockdock.com
http://hahlo.com/

http://iphone.my-cast.com/
http://www.rocklighter.com/
http://mkaz.com/nametag/index.php

Javascript bookmarklets (great for quick searching)

You can put an RSS feed there and it'll read the feed (although I know a ton of people who use google reader (all of the google products are good) and/or newsgator.
posted by filmgeek at 4:52 PM on May 16 [2 favorites]

Agreed, my comments were straying off-topic. Perhaps I wasn't clear above but, bandwidth permitting, you can use Orb to stream TV, video and music onto the iphone from your home, and you can use fring for VOIP.
posted by meehawl at 5:41 PM on May 16