All About Iphone

I was like you once. After fetching my e-mail, I'd open a message I wanted to delete, tap the trash-can icon, go back to the in-box, open another message, tap the trash-can icon, and on and on.

Then I discovered a killer shortcut: From the in-box, just swipe your finger across the message you want to trash, and then tap the shiny red Delete button that appears. Talk about a time-saver!

You can wipe multiple messages even faster by tapping the Edit button in the top-right corner of the screen, tapping each e-mail you want to mark for deletion, and then tapping the lower-left Delete button.

By the way, if the Mail application isn't showing you enough of each message to decide whether you can pitch it without opening it, there's an easy solution: Head to Settings, Mail, Contacts, Calendars, then tap the Preview button in the Mail section. Two lines is the default, but you might want to bump it up to three or four so you can see more of each message.

Got an e-mail tip of your own to share? Share your wisdom with us in the comments.

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Several iPhone users are experiencing visual feedback lags when attempting to type messages on their iPhones. Symptoms include key animations not activating when keys are touched. The issue does not appear to be for a specific letter or area of the keyboard and is generally considered intermittent, though many users report a consistent problem while typing in the SMS application.

Apple Support Discussions user Delapidator relays their experience with this issue:

"On the iPhone keyboard. You know when you touch a key on the keyboard and as you touch the letter it pops up but larger? Well, occasionally when I'm typing certain letters don't do it. The letter itself does go into the message body or whatever I'm typing into but it just doesn't pop up big to say that the letter has been typed. Not always the same letter, although certain letters do seem to suffer this problem more often than others. S and I are [the ones] that this happens to quite a bit. On the other hand sometimes they all work just fine?

I know it's not a really big problem coz at least the letters are working but sometimes if you're looking at the keyboard and not what your typing you think you haven't touched the letter and keep on touching it and it ends up looking a bit like ttttttthis! lol."

Possible fixes

1. Be sure your iPhone is updated to the latest software--currently iPhone OS 2.2.1.

2. Reset your iPhone. Hold the top button and the home button until the iPhone turns off and the Apple logo appears.

3. Plug your iPhone into your computer and restore it. Be sure you back up all your data, as this will wipe your iPhone clean and restore it to its factory settings. When the iPhone restarts, choose to restore from your backup.

4. Restore and reboot as a new iPhone. Follow the same restore procedure as above, but when the iPhone reboots, choose to restore as a new iPhone. This will create a new backup--effectively deleting all your settings and some of the information on your iPhone. Of course, anything you have backed up on your computer (music, movies, contacts, calendars, etc.) you can restore to your iPhone. Text messages, statistics, and other settings will be lost.

5. Though highly unlikely in this type of situation, if the problems persist after completing the above procedures, your issues could be hardware related-- perhaps related to the touch screen located under the glass face of the iPhone. Take your iPhone into your local Apple Store or to an Authorized AppleCare Technician to have it checked out.

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iPhone Atlas has already covered a number of complaints from iPhone users about iPhone OS 2.2.1.

Frequently, faulty Wi-Fi connections were the source of these complaints. Recently, that problem has resurfaced, and one user is linking the Wi-Fi problems to heat generated by the iPhone and its battery.
A discussion in the Apple forum describes a problem in which some iPhones are randomly dropping Wi-Fi signals, then failing to reconnect to any network for a period of time.

Many people think that the problem is caused by the iPhone overheating, and some go so far as to place their iPhone into a refrigerator to speed up the cooling process. (We don't suggest that you do the same; refrigerating your iPhone could cause water damage and void your warranty.) We recommend letting the iPhone cool at room temperature for 30 to 60 minutes, or until cool to the touch.

Apple Discussions user ScottieWil goes a step further and actually opened his iPhone to apply a nitrogen stick directly to the relevant chip. His Wi-Fi immediately returned to working order. ScottieWil researched the problem further and said in one of his posts:

I have now found the common factor in my Wi-Fi working and not working...its charge level of the battery. If the cell is under 50 percent, Wi-Fi just works...if it's above, it has problems. If the charge level is 90 percent or more, and I try to use Wi-Fi, the phone can reboot with(out) warning.

This, as I said before, may be the cell not being able to provide the current demand of the phone.

He also suggested that the iPhone's battery is very sensitive to temperature, which explains why Wi-Fi would work temporarily when the phone was cool, but not later, after the phone heated up.

Due to the varied nature of Wi-Fi problems reported, we suggest that you follow some of the troubleshooting tips we wrote about previously here and here before contacting AppleCare.

If the tips above fail to resolve the problem, some people on the same discussion thread are reporting that AppleCare is replacing iPhones experiencing this heating problem. However, Apple is doing so only after the iPhone is examined at a local Apple store.

If you or someone you know has experienced this problem, let us know in the comments.

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For a good six months now, Mint has been the go-to app for managing finances on your iPhone. Today, Quicken debuted its own money manager: Quicken Online Mobile. Like Mint, it's free. Unlike Mint, it's passcode-protected.

That protection addresses a long-standing concern: if someone makes off with your iPhone, they can fire up the Mint app and see how much money's sitting in each of your accounts.

Quicken Online Mobile, on the other hand, won't let you in without first entering your four-digit PIN.

To get started, you'll need to create a free Quicken Online account (if you don't already have one). As with Mint, QO gives you a big-picture overview of your bank accounts, credit cards, and the like. (It also allows for a little forecasting, such as when your next paycheck will hit.)

From there, just load up Quicken Online Mobile (which can also run on an iPod Touch, natch) and sign into your account. In addition to showing you account balances, the app lets you record purchases on the run and can find nearby ATMs--two perks not available in Mint's app.

Is that enough to make you switch? Or do you continue to have concerns about carrying sensitive financial data in a device that's easily lost or stolen? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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You don't have to own a Mac to use FileMaker's new Bento for iPhone and iPod Touch--released Tuesday in the iTunes App Store--but if you do, wireless sync adds extra incentive to take your personal databases to go.

Bento ($4.99) offers non-Mac users a portable personal database for storing everything from birthdays and home expenses to recipes and an exercise log, with 25 templates to start. Integration with the address book, dialer, Safari browser, e-mail in-box, and Google Maps make Bento a useful iPhone app offering that could become a master storehouse for your separate lists; and one that quickly facilitates calls, mapping, and Web searches from within the app.

We got a demo of the handsome, dark Bento app a few weeks ago. After playing with it for a while, it appears to balance a mine of data fields with the iPhone's customarily accessible interface. Bento's home screen displays all your data libraries, which you can swipe through to view. Other screens let you add a new library, search for entries, or sync to Bento on the Mac. Each new library is prepopulated with one dummy entry to get you started. While there is a dedicated search screen, a similar search field within each library facilitates more advanced investigations of your data.

While straightforward at the top level, Bento for iPhone has a few more tricks tucked away--like the option to rate your contacts (your child's babysitters, for instance), and add additional data fields. Bento will also let you create subcollections within any record with the push of a button that looks like three overlapping squares. Those familiar with Bento 2 for Mac will note that while calculations and related records from the desktop version can be transferred to and used on the iPhone version, you won't be able to create either on the device.

We won't know for sure until we build up some databases of our own, but after looking at Bento for iPhone in its prelaunch state, it seems promising for the uberorganized.

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