The feature is Panorama mode for capturing wide pictures.

Previously, the users had to choose third party apps like Panorama 360, to capture images in panorama mode.

This newly discovered feature is assumed to be in test phase in iOS 5 and is likely to be included in the next iOS version.

Panorama mode works fine on Apple iPhone 4S.

Here is the guide helping you to reveal the hidden Panorama feature on your iPhone.

1. Download and install iBackupBot. This is a third party tool for your PC. It works in both Windows and Mac operating systems.
2. Create a backup – Use iBackupBot to create a backup of your iOS 5 device. Strictly use this software only.  Do not create any backup through iTunes as it will be useless for our purpose.
3. Navigate to Library->Preferences->com.apple.mobileslideshow.plist and locate the folowing code there.

<key>DiskSpaceWasLow</key>

<false/>

Just below this code add the following lines in the file.

<key>EnableFirebreak</key>

<string>YES</string>

4. Restore the backup to your iPhone 4S.

Enjoy capturing pictures in panoramic mode by navigating to Options->Panorama while opening phone camera app.

Other Apple devices which have been upgraded to iOS 5 also perform poor in battery backup.

Recently, Apple launched an update to iOS 5, version 5.0.1, but it too failed to get the problem solved.

The reason behind the poor battery life can be due to heavy apps and services like Siri or iCloud service.

Here are a few tips that will help you to improve your battery life on iOS 5:

1. Disable iCloud:  According to a massive amount of forum postings over at apple.com, iCloud is the biggest battery drainer app. You can disable iCloud from Settings->General->iCloud.
2. Disable Connectivity You Don’t Use:  Connectivity, in form of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or 3G, consumes the most battery for any phone.  You can disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when they are not required.  For improving the battery life significantly, 3G should also be disabled.
3. Disable Location Based Services:  Disabling Location based services will save a good amount of juice in your battery, but it may affect overall functionality of the device. It is better to disable those services/apps that you do not use. Go to Settings->Location Services and disable the unworthy services.
4. Lower Screen Brightness:  More screen brightness, more battery consumption. 40% screen brightness is enough in most conditions. Automatic brightness is also an alternative option.

By applying the above listed steps, you will notice a good improvement in your iOS 5 device. However, there are also some other minor tweaks, but these will serve you well. Third party apps are also available on iTunes to get the mission “Battery Save” accomplished

iOS 5.0.1 Summary

Version 5.0.1 of Apple’s iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch was released on 10th November 2011.

• Fixes bugs affecting battery life
• Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
• Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
• Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

Downloading & Installing iOS 5.0.1

For most normal users it is advisable to install iOS 5.0.1 using the normal method of either using the ‘Software Update’ feature in Settings > General > Software Update or by plugging your device into your PC or Mac via USB and hitting ‘Download & Install’ button when prompted by iTunes.

There are however other ways including downloading the full software package (links below) in IPSW format.

You can learn the various ways of updating your iOS device’s software in this tip.

Download iOS 5.0.1 IPSW Files

• Download iPhone 4S 5.01. IPSW
• Download iPhone 4 (GSM) IPSW
• Download iPhone 4 (CDMA) IPSW
• Download iPhone 3GS IPSW
• Download iPad 2 WiFi IPSW
• Download iPad 2 GSM IPSW
• Download iPad 2 CDMA IPSW
• Download iPad 1 IPSW
• Download iPod Touch 3G IPSW
• Download iPod Touch 4 IPSW

iOS 5.0 Summary

Version 5.0 of Apple’s iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch was released on 12th October 2011.

iOS5 is the next major release of iOS and includes over 200 new features.

Full feature list below….

Downloading & Installing iOS 5.0

For most normal users it is advisable to install iOS 5.0.1 using the normal method of plugging in your device and hitting ‘Download & Install’ button when prompted by iTunes.

There are however other ways including downloading the full software package (links below) in IPSW format.

You can learn the various ways of updating your iOS device’s software in this tip.

Download iOS 5 IPSW Files

• Download iOS 5 iPhone 4 (GSM)
• Download iOS 5 iPhone 4 (Verizon)
• Download iOS 5 iPhone 3GS
• Download iOS 5 iPad 2 WiFi
• Download iOS 5 iPad 2 GSM
• Download iOS 5 iPad 2 CDMA
• Download iOS 5 iPad
• Download iOS 5 iPod touch 3G
• Download iOS 5 iPod touch 4G

iOS 5 Feature List

This update contains over 200 new features, including the following:

• Notifications
• Swipe from the top of any screen to view notifications in one place with Notification Center
• New notifications appear briefly at the top of the screen
• View notifications from lock screen
• Slide the notification app icon to the right on the lock screen to go directly to the app
• iMessage
•  Send and receive unlimited text, photo, and video messages with other iOS 5 users
•  Track messages with delivery and read receipts
• Group messaging and secure encryption
• Works over cellular network and Wi-Fi*
• Newsstand
• Automatically organizes magazine and newspaper subscriptions on Home Screen
• Displays the cover of the latest issue
• Background downloads of new issues
• Reminders for managing to do lists
• Syncs with iCloud, iCal and Outlook
• Location-based reminders when you leave or arrive at a location for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Built-in support for Twitter
• Sign-in once in Settings and tweet directly from Camera, Photos, Maps, Safari and YouTube
• Add location to any tweet
• View twitter profile pictures and usernames in Contacts
• Camera improvements for devices with cameras
• Double click the home button when device is asleep to bring up a camera shortcut on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation)
• Volume Up button to take a picture
• Optional grid lines to line up shots
• Pinch to zoom in the preview screen
• Swipe to camera roll from preview screen
• Tap and hold to lock focus and exposure, iPad 2 and iPod touch (4th generation) only support exposure lock
• Photo improvements for devices with cameras
• Crop and rotate
• Red eye removal
• One tap enhance
• Organize photos into albums
• Mail improvements
• Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts
• Indentation control
• Drag to rearrange names in address fields
• Flag messages
• Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
• Customize mail alert sounds
• S/MIME
• Calendar improvements
• Year view on iPad and new Week view for iPhone and iPod touch
• Tap to create an event
• View and add event attachments
• Game Center improvements
• Use personal photos for your Game Center account
• Compare your overall achievement scores with your friends
• Find new Game Center friends with friend recommendations and friends of friends
• Discover new games with custom game recommendations
• AirPlay Mirroring for iPad 2 and iPhone 4S
• Multitasking Gestures for iPad
• Use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen
• Swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar
• Swipe left or right to switch between apps
• On-device setup, activation and configuration with Setup Assistant
• Software updates available over the air without tethering
• iCloud support
• iTunes in the Cloud
• Photo Stream
• Documents in the Cloud
• Apps and Books automatic download and purchase history
• Backup
• Contacts, Calendar, and Mail
• Find My iPhone
• Redesigned Music app for iPad
• Hourly weather forecast
• Real-time stock quotes
• Wireless sync to iTunes
• Keyboard improvements
• Split keyboard for iPad
• Improved autocorrection accuracy
• Improved Chinese and Japanese input
• New Emoji keyboard
• Personal dictionary for autocorrection
• Optionally create keyboard short cuts for frequently used words
• Accessibility improvements
• Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
• Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
• New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
• Option to speak a selection of text
• Custom element labeling for VoiceOver
• Exchange ActiveSync improvements
• Wirelessly sync tasks
• Mark messages as flagged, read or unread
• Improved offline support
• Save a new contact from a GAL service
• More than 1,500 new developer APIs
• Bug fixes

Version 4.3.5 of Apple’s iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch was released on 25th July 2011 just 10 days after 4.3.4 to fix a security certificate glitch.

Downloading & Installing iOS 4.3.5

For most normal users it is advisable to install iOS 4.3.5 using the normal method of plugging in your device and hitting ‘Download & Install’ button when prompted by iTunes.

There are however other ways including downloading the full software package (links below) in IPSW format.

You can learn the various ways of updating your iOS device’s software in this tip.

Download IPSW Files

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4 (GSM)
• iPad 1
• iPad 2 (also iPad 2,2 and iPad 2,3)
• iPod Touch 3rd gen
• iPod Touch 4th gen

Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard (and now Lion) operating system on Mac introduced the concept of symbol and text substitutions which are more commonly used for auto correction.

An example of this is where typing ‘teh‘ in any OS X app will automatically correct itself to ‘the‘.  This is no coincidence and now this awesome feature has been ported over to iOS 5.

Simply called Shortcuts, Apple have hidden this away in the keyboard settings for now.

It can serve many purposes such as a regular user dictionary (about time eh) where you can add your own words so the keyboard recognizes a particular word or phrase immediately.

It’s most intended use however is where a user can enter a shortcut for a longer phrase.  The default example given in iOS 5′s beta is OMW which is a shortcut for On My Way!, a commonly used phrase in SMS but it can be used for anything.

The other use for Shortcuts is of course what it’s used for mostly in Mac OS X which is to autocorrect commonly misspelled words unique to you.  I, for example, commonly mistype words ending in ‘ate‘ such as ‘separate’ – normally I type ‘separaet‘….I’m not quite sure why…

Here’s how to configure a Shortcut on iOS 5:

1.  Tap Settings > General > Keyboard

2.  Tap Add New Shortcut…

3.  In the Phrase field, enter what you want the shortcut translated into, e.g., ‘On My Way!’

4.  In the Shortcut field, enter the letters you’d like to type to get the phrase to appear, e.g., ‘OMW’

5.  Tap Save

This has been tested with joy on iOS 5 on an iPhone 3GS.

And pretty logically they’ve simply made the Name field in the About screen editable.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Tap Settings

2.  Tap General

3.  Tap About

4.  Tap into the Name field

5.  Enter a new name and tap Done.

Of course, should you decide to plug into iTunes, the Name will sync right up to the PC or Mac too.

This ‘business as usual’, straight outta the manual tip was tested on iOS 5 developer beta 2 on an iPhone 3GS.

This may be a basic usage tip an often ‘googled’ one nonetheless.

When an unlocked iPhone rings you’ll see two options, Answer or Reject which is fine but on a locked iPhone a Slide to Answer option at the bottom of the lock screen is all that’s visible.

To silence the ringing locked iPhone press the sleep/standby button at the top of the iPhone or to reject the call altogether press it twice.

That’s it.

This works all the way up to iOS 4.3.3 and probably after that too.

Version 4.3.4 of Apple’s iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch was released on 15th July 2011.

Downloading & Installing iOS 4.3.4

For most normal users it is advisable to install iOS 4.3.4 using the normal method of plugging in your device and hitting ‘Download & Install’ button when prompted by iTunes.

There are however other ways including downloading the full software package (links below) in IPSW format.

You can learn the various ways of updating your iOS device’s software in this tip.

Download IPSW Files

iPhone

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4 GSM
• iPhone 4 CDMA (Verizon)

iPad

• iPad 1
• iPad 2 (WiFi)
• iPad 2 (GSM+WiFi)
• iPad 2 (CDMA+WiFi)

iPod Touch

• iPod Touch 3rd Generation
• iPod Touch 4th Generation

Here’s how to do it:

Firstly ensure that you’ve got the passcode enabled by tapping Settings > General > Passcode Lock.

Now the option for Photo Frame will be activated in the General options screen.

Toggle the Photo Frame switch to OFF to disable the button on the lock screen.

My Photo Frame tip was tested and worked beautifully on an iPad 2 running iOS 4.3.3.

A simple but effective feature also introduced with iOS 3 is the ability to delete or forward individual or multiple SMS messages from within the conversation view.

It’s a feature many have overlooked as it’s not immediately obvious.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Tap Messages app

2.  Tap the name of a person to open the conversation view of sent/received SMS messages

3.  Tap the Edit button

4.  Using the standard view functionality, tap along the left side to select one or more messages.

5.  At the bottom toolbar, tap either Forward or Delete.

I tried out this little gem just today on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3 and it worked just fine.

Is this also an indicator of a more powerful, more useful camera in iPhone 5??

iOS 5 will allow you to touch the camera button straight from the lock screen on iPhone without entering your pass code to unlock the phone.  It will then open the Camera app in a kind of secure state where the user cannot access any other part of the phone until it’s truly locked.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  With your iPhone in a locked state, double tap the Home button

2.  When the camera symbol appears on the Lock Screen, tap it to start the Camera app.

3.  Don’t forget, you can now use the volume switch as a shutter release button too.

Tested on iOS 5 developer edition on iPad 2.

You can share your iPhones connection with any compatible Bluetooth or USB device such as an iPad, other tablet, laptop, etc.

This tip concentrates on the connecting an iPad by Bluetooth to an iPhone 3GS but many other device combinations should work just as well.

On your iPad I first recommend turning off Wi-Fi and Cellular Data options to avoid any confusion.

Here’s how to do it:

On the iPhone:

1. Tap Settings > Personal Hotspot > ON
2. Tap Settings
3. Tap General > Network > Bluetooth > ON

On the iPad:

1. Tap Settings > Wi-Fi > OFF
2. Tap Settings > General > Network > Bluetooth > ON
3. When the iPhone is listed as a device, tap it to start pairing.
4. Back on the iPhone, tap the iPad  from the list of devices to start pairing.
5. Both devices will display a message with a code. Dismiss these messages.

As soon as the devices connect via Bluetooth a blue bar will appear at the top of the iPhone indicating that the Personal Hotspot is active.
Likewise, on the iPad, a symbol of a pair of linked chains will appear in the top left corner indication that it is using a Personal Hotspot connection.

This can already be achieved on iOS 4, without an Apple TV, using Apple’s HDMI AV Mirroring Adapter but iOS 5 now provides a wireless method albeit using Apple TV to do the job.

Airplay Mirroring has been simply but effectively integrated right into the multitasking bar and it’s performance is surprisingly good.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Ensure your Apple TV is switched on and at the home screen.

2.  On your iPad 2, access the multitasking bar by either swiping up the screen with three fingers or by double-tapping the home button.

3.  Swipe the multi-tasking bar to the right to reveal the iPod/Brightness/Volume/Airplay controls panel.

4.  Tap the Airplay button.

5.  Tap Apple TV

6.  Toggle the Mirroring switch to ON.

This was tested on an iPad 2 running iOS 5 developer edition.  These features may change when iOS 5 is released.

iOS 4 did however bring at least some welcome improvements from the software side by adding touch to focus and digital zoom.

In keeping with the norm, the Camera app’s zoom is simple but effective under the right conditions.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Tap the Camera app to open.

2.  Ensure you’re in still mode by toggling the still/video switch to the left.

3.  Now point the device towards the subject and tap on the screen at the point you’d like to zoom to.  The image will auto-focus and the digital zoom slider will appear.

4.  Slide the slider to the right to zoom in on the subject.

This tip was tested out on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3.

The Mail app on your iOS device has all sorts of intelligence built-in which you’ve probably discovered such as detecting phone numbers, dates and email addresses from right inside an open email.

A well undocumented piece of clever thinking however is the ability to detect UPS tracking numbers.

If you open an email with a UPS tracking number it will immediately be detected and turn from normal text to a blue link.

Tapping this link will pop up a new context menu with two options, Track Shipment or Cancel.

Simply tap Track Shipment to be whisked off to the UPS tracking website where the details of your shipment will be displayed.

This secret tip has been verified on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3 tracking my recent iPad 2 shipment from the Apple Store

One simple but effective new feature iOS 5 has introduced rids us of the annoyance of not being able to read that full song title or artist name.

Here’s how to do it.

When viewing the list of songs in the iPod Music app be it a playlist or in the Songs view simply tap and hold the song name and a pop up bubble will appear displaying the full details fo the song’s name and artist.

Not rocket science but thoughtful nonetheless.

This little tip was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released.

For me, what makes iOS 5′s Reminders app stand out from the crowd is the very clever inclusion of setting a reminder based on the devices future location.

So for example, you can receive a reminder to pick up the dry cleaning when you’re at the mall.

Here’s how to create a location based reminder in iOS 5:

1.  Tap Reminders app

2.  Tap either the plus symbol or an empty row to create a new reminder.

3.  Enter a name for the reminder

4.  Tap the new reminder to access the details

5.  Tap the Remind Me row

6.  Toggle the At a Location switch to ON

7.  Specify the location as either your current location or by selecting a location from your Contacts address book (hopefully this will be improved in future to include selecting frmo map, typing an address, etc)

8.  Tap either When I Arrive or When I Leave

9.  Tap Done

More on the new Reminders app over the next few weeks and months.

This was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released.

Here’s a quick example of how you can tweet a link from Safari:

1.  Firstly make sure you’ve set up your Twitter account details by tapping Settings > Twitter

2.  In Safari, tap and hold any link on a web page until the context menu appears

3.  Tap Tweet

4.  Enter your tweet

5.  Optionally, add your location by tapping the Location option

6.  Tap Send

More Twitter tips coming over the next weeks and months!

This was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released.

Mobile Safari was in the same boat and whilst that’s acceptable on a iPhone screen the iPad’s Safari usability score really took a hit for me without tabs.

Thankfully iOS 5 has now introduced tabbed browsing and it seems clean and fairly standard.

Here’s how to do it:

Opening A Link

1.  To open a link on an existing web page, tap and hold the link until the context menu pops down.

2.  Tap Open in New Tab.

Opening A New Blank Tab

1.  Keep it simple, just tap the + symbol to the right of the row of tabs just like Firefox on Mac & Windows.

One slight annoyance already is that the X to close the tabs is only visible on the active tab but maybe this will change.

This was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released.

Often iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch users will have a second web browser for the sole purpose of private browsing or incognito mode as it’s often called.

Now Safari on iOS 5 has this option as standard.

As usual the Safari settings are hidden away in devices main Settings screen and not inside the app so here’s how to enable Private Browsing:

1.  Tap Settings

2.  Tap Safari

3.  Toggle the Private Browsing toggle switch to ON.

This was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released to the public.

I fall into the later group.  It is nothing less than infuriating when my iOS devices prompt me to join every wi-fi network in a 100 meter radius.

And with more and more wireless hotspots popping up in people’s homes and businesses the prompts just get more frequent.

Here’s how to disable those prompts:

1.  Tap Settings

2.  Tap Wi-Fi

3.  Set Ask to Join Networks toggle switch to OFF

This works nicely on any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch with Wi-FI (which is eh, all of em).

I just tested it right now on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3.

Vibration alert has been around a while but now iOS 5 will allow you to either select one of five standard vibrations styles or create your own custom vibration alert for a particular contact in your Contacts app.

I’m not sure if this will really ‘feel’ accurate but the feature is definitely imaginative.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Open Contacts App

2.  Tap the Contact you’d like to assign a custom vibration alert to

3.  Tap Edit

4.  Tap Vibration field

5.  Tap Create Custom Vibration

6.  Tap to create a vibration pattern.  Note how the screen ripples as you tap to show pressure and length of tap.

7.  Tap Play to see how it feels.

8.  Tap Save.

This was tested on iOS 5 beta 1 developer release and may change when iOS 5 is released.

iPhone of course shipped with vibrate from the outset but like many other phones vibrate has a negative effect on battery performance and it’s probably over the top to have a loud obnoxious ringtone and vibrate on at the same time anyway.

Here’s how to disable vibrate for when your ringtones are on and enable vibrate for when the phone is muted.

1.  Tap Settings

2.  Tap Sounds

3.  There are two Vibrate toggle switches on this page – be sure you set the second one to OFF and the first one (under Silent) should stay at ON.

This will mean when iPhone is muted, vibrate is ON.  When iPhone is not muted, vibrate is OFF.

This was tested on a sticky hot day in June 2011 on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

iPhone:

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4

iPad:

• iPad 1
• iPad 2

iPod Touch:

• iPod Touch 3rd Generation
• iPod Touch 4th Generation

iOS 5 will not be compatible with the following devices:

iPhone 3G, iPhone (original), iPod Touch 1st Generation, iPod Touch 2nd Generation

iOS Tips will be publishing tips about all the new features of iOS 5 just as soon as they become available.  We’ll also be including info on iCloud and jailbreaking iOS 5 as soon as that’s being cracked.

iOS 5 promises to bring 200 new features to iOS devices and iOS Tips will bring you tips about those new features just as soon as we get our hands on it.

For the moment, here’s a run down of the highlights:

• Improvements to
  • Notifications system – alerts are now tightly integrated into the screen and don’t stop your current activity with an intrusive pop up like on iOS 4.  Also has a new notifications center where you can view new messages, mail, upcoming calendar entries, etc in a single view.  Lock screen has also being enhanced with a summary of your latest notifications.
  • Camera App – integrated into the lock screen for quick access.  Volume up button now doubles as the shutter click button.
  • Photos App – integrated editing now included.  Sync to new iCloud service for sharing.
  • Calendar – New views and drag n’ drop entries.
  • Mail – Rich text editing (bold, italic, underline), create folders, drag n’ drop.  Sync to iCloud.
  • Safari – Reader and Reading List for enhanced user experience reading articles on the web.  Tabbed browsing for iPad.  iCloud integration for reading list (saved articles).
  • Game Center – enhanced profiles, buy games from inside Game Center.
• New Features
  • iMessage – SMS without the carrier charges.  Text message any of your friends who also have an iOS device (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch)
  • Newsstand – iBooks for Magazines.
  • Reminders App – A nice task management app with a host of features including location-based reminders such as setting a reminder for when you arrive at a particular place.  Also syncs with iCloud & iCal.
  • Twitter – tightly integrated into Photos, YouTube, Maps & Safari. Will also be available for developers to integrate into their Apps.
  • PC Free – You no longer need to connect your iOS devices to a PC or Mac ever.  Software updates will be over the air and backup will be to iCloud.
  • Wireless Sync – USB to PC or Mac is no longer required for syncing to iTunes.  Simply plug your iOS device into a charger while connected to your wireless network and your device will start syncing with iTunes over the wi-fi network.
  • Multitasking Gestures – touch screen gestures now requires more fingers.  You can now use 4 or 5 fingers to unlock new shortcuts such as the multitasking bar, switching apps, etc
  • iPad Mirroring over AirPlay – grrr just after I coughed up $29 for the HDMI mirroring cable Apple went and made the feature standard over AirPlay.  You can now mirror your iPad’s screen to show video, pictures or anything really to your Apple TV.

I’m sure if we dig deep enough we’ll find the 200 new features and tips to go with them.

It moved away from the traditional ‘Inbox’ and ‘Sent Messages’ folder with lists of messages to a friendlier conversation or ‘chat style’ list of messages.

Of course this brought it’s problems too.

Users were used to regularly deleting messages because of storage problems and for other reasons such as privacy.

iPhone certainly solved the storage problems but how do you delete just one particular message from this stream of ‘chat style’ messages?

This is achieved in much the same way as with many iOS apps that take advantage of using iOS’s built-in view functionality.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  With Messages app open, tap a contact’s messages to open the ‘chat style’ list of sent and received messages

2.  Tap Edit button in the top right corner

3.  Now tap to select each individual message you want to delete

4.  Tap Delete (or Forward if you wish) on the bottom tool bar.

This tip was recently tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

Thankfully, this Show Preview feature is easily switched off and the actual text of the SMS text message gets replaced with the words ‘Text Message’ instead.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Tap Settings

2.  Tap Messages

3.  Toggle Show Preview to OFF

Of course, you might want to change the contact name to something less incriminating too

This great tip was tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3 in June 2011!

Voice dialing was introduced many years ago on Nokia and Panasonic mobile phones and has rarely impressed me enough to use it on a regular basis until now.

For those regular contacts you call who may have names which are quite difficult to pronounce you can now insert a phonetic spelling of the first and last name into your Contacts app.  Trust me, as someone who has a wife from Eastern Europe with 13 letters in her surname, this is very convenient.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Open Contacts app

2.  Select the contact you’d like to enter a phonetic spelling for.

3.  Tap Edit

4.  Scroll to the bottom and tap add field

5.  Tap Phonetic First Name

6.  Enter the phonetic spelling for the first name

7.  Optionally, scroll to the bottom and tap add field again

8.  Tap Phonetic Last Name

9.  Enter the phonetic spelling for the Last Name

10.  Tap Done

This tip was tested on iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

Since iOS 4 was introduced for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users have had the ability to switch from one app to the other without completely closing the first app.

This was a long-awaited new feature and is quite simply accessed.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  When either using an app or when on your springboard, double tap the Home button

2.  The multitasking bar will appear at the bottom – tap any app to re-open or switch to it.

3.  Swipe right and left to view and access previously open apps.

4.  To force quit an app completely, tap and hold any app icon in the multitasking bar and then tap the minus symbol that appears.

5.  To force quit all apps, you must tap each minus symbol although due to iOS’s efficient memory management techniques, this is not necessary.

This tip was verified on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3.

When you sync your photos to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, iTunes syncs your events and albums in the order they appear in iTunes itself.

You may also notice that iTunes does not allow you to re-order either the Albums or Events which to some is quite annoying.

So here’s how to do it:

On a Mac -

1.  Quit iTunes

2.  Open iPhoto

3.  Click Events

4.  Drag your events to the order in which you would like to appear on your iOS device

5.  Launch iTunes and sync.

iTunes picks up the sort order from iPhoto.  The same goes for your albums.  Simply drag and drop them into your preferred order and then re-open iTunes and sync.

Anyone got a Windows tip for this?  Let us know!

Maybe you have a lot of Johns or Davids in your Contacts and find yourself having to type out a surname just to find the right contact well next time try this instead:

Either in your Contacts app or using Spotlight Search simply type the initials of the contact you’re looking for with a space in between each.

In other words, tap into the Search field and for example, for John Doe simply type J D and John Doe will appear below.

This works when looking for contacts through Spotlight too.

As an added bonus Spotlight will find anything else on your iPhone, iPod or iPad that has those letters also.

This was recently tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

Apple TV 2 has a micro-USB port on the rear that’s being described by Apple as for “service and support” and this is exactly what it will be used for if you call up Apple tech support.

Basically you can do either a software update or a full restore via iTunes but no sync as there’s no internal storage on ATV 2.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Unplug the power from the Apple TV 2!

2.  Connect a micro-USB cable from your Apple TV 2 to a standard USB port on your PC or Mac.

If you don’t have a micro USB cable you can get one here for about 5 bucks and it can also be used to jailbreak your Apple TV 2 if you wish.

3.  Launch iTunes

4.  Select the ATV 2 from the Devices section on the left.

5.  Click Restore

This will restore the latest version of the Apple TV software and reset all settings.

As there is no media actually stored on the Apple TV you will not lose any data.

That’s great if you have an internet connection but what if you want to write a mail and store it locally for offline use?

You can configure your Gmail account on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to store drafts and trashed mail on the device itself.

This means you don’t have to connect to the Gmail server every time which is great for saving on your data plan and even better if you have no internet access at all and want to write a draft email ready to be sent when you are in range of a connection.

Here’s how you do it:

1.  Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars

2.  Tap your Gmail account

3.  Tap your Gmail Account address at the top

4.  Tap Advanced at the bottom

5.  Under Mailbox Behaviours, tap Drafts Mailbox

6.  Tap Drafts under the iPhone (iPad or iPod) heading

7.  Tap Advanced (top left) to return

All done!  Enjoy working offline.

You might have notice, you can also change where your Trash gets sent too.

This was tested on iOS 4.3.3 on iPhone 3GS.

Ever want to send a web page to a friend or colleague and found yourself trying to copy and paste the URL directly out of the internet address bar in Safari?

There is an easier way!

When you’re viewing any webpage in Safari on your iOS device simply tap the Sharing button on the lower toolbar.  That’s the button that looks like a little paper tray with a swishing arrow.

Now tap Mail Link to this Page from the pop up menu and a new mail message will be created right inside Safari.

The new message will inherit the web page’s title as the default subject line and the internet address (URL) will be placed in the body.

Add some text, enter an address and tap Send!

This tip was tested and verified on iOS 4.3.3 on an iPhone 3GS.  Does it work the same for you?

If you’re wondering how you can stop iTunes from automatically kicking off the sync + backup + update process when you plug your iOS device in then look no further.

By holding down the Shift + Control keys (Windows) or Command + Option keys (Mac) and then plugging your iPad, iPhone or iPod into your USB port you will tell iTunes not to sync!

If you happen to miss it and sync kicks off anyway, either slide the unlock slider on your device or hit the eject symbol in iTunes and your device will gracefully stop syncing and disconnect.

This was tested using both an iPad 2 and an iPhone 3GS on iTunes 10.2 (Mac).

It’s simple enough to change this setting.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars

2.  Scroll to the bottom

3.  Tap Default Calendar

4.  Select your default calendar from the list and tap Home button to exit.

There is a message at the bottom of the settings page that says: New events created outside of a specific calendar will default to this calendar.

This message is a bit of mystery to me, at least on iPhone, as you cannot ever be ‘inside’ a particular calendar.

Comment below if you’ve any thoughts on this mysterious message.  I’m guessing it will disappear in future iOS releases.

This was tested on iOS 4.3.3 on an iPhone 3GS.

The problem is, on some web pages when you are viewing a framed section or a JavaScript/ajax style dialog box with it’s own scroll bar, you try to scroll as you normally would in Safari the entire page scrolls instead of just the content in the smaller framed area.

Most people who come across this problem are likely to just dismiss it as a limitation of touch screen scrolling but there is a way to scroll the framed content – just use two fingers!

That’s right, when you see a webpage where a section has its own scroll bar independent of the rest of the page simply tap and scroll inside that area with two fingers.

This tip was tested on an iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 both running iOS 4.3.3.

On a desktop PC or Mac we’re used to hovering our mouse pointer over a link on a webpage to see what it is before clicking.

For obvious reasons, this is not so easy to do on a touch screen device like your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

As a neat way around this lack of hover ability iOS shows you what the underlying link is another way – tap and hold.

If you tap and hold a link in either Mail or Safari a dialog will appear with the full internet address URL at the top of the dialog box.

From here you can then continue to open the link by tapping Open, open the link in a new Safari page by tapping Open in New Page, copy the link to the clipboard by tapping Copy or simply Cancel if you change your mind.

Not being a U.S. citizen myself, I like many have to use other means in order to access other services from time to time.

One such service is Amazon’s Cloud Player which is currently only available to users inside America.

To get around this for Cloud Player and for any other service that requires you to be inside the US such as Netflix, ABC and Pandora just use a simple VPN service like OverPlay.

You can have OverPlay set up and connected within minutes and you can connect to the U.S. or many other countries to support a massive amount of services.

OverPlay is not just for iOS devices but this is where I use it a lot, especially when travelling so that I can ensure my iOS device remains [pretends to be] in my home country even if I’m physically not!

Here’s how to set up OverPlay on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad and use Amazon’s Cloud Player service from any country:

1.  Go to www.overplay.net and register for a new account

2.  On your iOS device, tap Settings

3.  Tap General > Network > VPN

4.  Tap Add VPN Configuration…

5.  Tap PPTP

6.  For Description enter Overplay

7.  For Server enter vpn-us-east.overplay.net

8.  For Account enter your username from Overplay.net

9.  Set RSA SecurID select OFF

10. For Password enter your password from Overplay.net

11. Set Encryption Level to Auto

12. Set Send All Traffic to ON

13. Set Proxy to OFF

14. Tap Save

15. Toggle VPN to ON

16.  You should now be connected to your US VPN server.  Open Safari.

17.  Enter the address: www.amazon.com/cloudplayer > tap GO

You should now be presented with the Amazon Log in screen where you can either register or log in to the Amazon Cloud Player service from anywhere.

This was tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

When Amazon’s Cloud Player service was released in March it was sudden, without any consultation or permission from the record labels and without iPhone, iPod or iPad support.

Any iOS user was simply given a generic type error screen indicating that the browser was not supported and to try a newer version of Internet Explorer – a strange one.

Now they’ve either fixed the problem or simply opened up the service to iOS users but through the browser and not through a dedicated App or through an iOS enhanced web site – it’s not pretty, but it works.

Here’s how to do it:

1. On your PC or Mac, open a web browser and go to http://www.amazon.com/clouddrive

2.  Either sign in or register for a new account

3.  Upload your music – up to 5GB for free.

4.  On your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, tap Safari

5.  In the address bar type – http://www.amazon.com/cloudplayer and tap Go

6.  Sign in to your Amazon account.

7.  Tap Continue if you receive an error about an unsupported browser

8.  If prompted, accept Amazon’s terms and conditions (if you agree of course), enter the captcha code and tap Continue.

9.  Your music should now appear on the right with a navigator on the left allowing you to view by Song, Albums, Artist or Genre.

A few notes –

1 – Uploading music from iPhone, iPod or iPad through Safari is not possible.  The Upload to your Cloud button will do nothing.

2 – You must be physically in the United States (US) to use the service or be masking your IP to place your connection in the US.  (more on that in a later tip!)

3 – As you are using cloud player, there will be no media controls integration (or any other iOS integration) unlike when using other services such as DropBox or SugarSync to stream audio.

While not strictly a setting but more of a workaround, you can cleverly create your own Safari homepage or even multiple ones on your iOS device.

If like me, you keep the Safari app icon in the dock for quick access try replacing it with the homescreen icon for a page you really want when you open Safari.

Here’s how to do it:

1)  Open Safari

2)  Enter the URL to the page you want as your Safari homepage

3)  Tap the Sharing icon on the lower toolbar

4)  Tap Add to Home Screen

5)  Name it Safari (or whatever you want) and tap Done button

6)  Now tap and hold the original Safari app icon until all icons start wobbling

7)  Drag the original Safari app icon out of the dock

8)  Drag your new Safari app icon into the dock.

Now anytime you launch Safari through your new icon your favorite homepage will be displayed in either a new page or an existing page if you already have that address open in Safari.

The only hitch here is that the icon on your springboard won’t be the blue Safari icon.

Any ideas how to fix that?  Let us know below.

It’s just one of those things that you either know or you don’t and if you don’t it’s unlikely you’ll stumble across it by accident.

On any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch app that has a standard view that supports adding, editing or removing entries you’ll most likely be able to delete a single row by swiping instead of using the Edit button, selecting the row and tapping delete.

The most obvious built in Apps this applies to is the Mail, Messages and Notes apps but it should work in almost any app with an editable view.

Here’s how to do it (Messages as an example but could be any app with an editable view):

1.  With Messages open ensure you are looking at the view of all received messages

2.  Swipe your finger to the right across a message row

3.  When the Delete button appears, tap it.

This was tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3

You can now upload multiple images or videos from your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad straight to your DropBox which will then sync automatically with DropBox on your Mac or PC.

Here’s how to do it:

1.  Register, Download & install DropBox from this link.  When you register you’ll get 2GB free storage and you can increase that 8GB by referring your friends.

2.  After you install DropBox it will seamlessly integrate into Windows Explorer, Mac Finder (available for Linux too).  Simply drag and drop some music into your DropBox.

4.  While DropBox is doing a sync, open up the App Store on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch and search for and download DropBox.

5.  When complete, open up the DropBox app and login using the same username and password you registered with above.

6.  Tap Uploads > Tap + (top right corner)

7.  Photo Albums should open.  Tap to select an album.

8.  Tap to select one or more photos and/or videos.

9.  Tap the folder at the bottom of the screen to change the destination folder on your DropBox

10.  Tap Upload when ready.

DropBox will begin uploading your selection.  You may exit the application by pressing the Home button and DropBox will continue in the background.

This was tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3 and DropBox for iOS 1.4.1.

It’s well documented that the iPod controls are now located to the left side of the multitasking bar accessed by double tapping Home and swiping the multitask bar to the right but where’s the volume control gone?

Quite simply, swipe right once more.

On iPad there’s plenty of space to fit all the media controls in the one screen but on iPhone and iPod Touch Apple had to place the volume on a separate screen.

Now why didn’t they include a brightness control also I wonder?

Here’s the steps:

1.  With the phone unlocked, double tap the Home button

2.  Swipe the multitasking bar to the right to reveal the media control bar.

3.  Swipe the media control bar to the right once more to reveal the volume controls.

This was tested on an iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.3.3.

Did it work for you?

The jailbreak supports:

• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4 (GSM)
• iPod Touch 3rd Generation
• iPod Touch 4th Generation
• iPad 1 only

No iPad 2 support.

It’s available as always for free through the Dev-Team blog: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/

By default, iTunes will perform a number of tasks as soon as you plug your USB cord in including launching itself if not already open, performing a backup, checking for software updates and finally syncing the latest updates.

If you prefer to manually kick off the synchronization process then just follow these steps to disable auto syncing for an individual device or configure iTunes to never to perform an auto sync any device that’s connected.

Stop Auto Sync For One Specific iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad:

1.  Open iTunes

2.  Connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch

3.  Select the device when it appears in the left hand navigator under Devices

4.  Make sure the Summary tab is selected and scroll to the Options pane

5.  Deselect Open iTunes when this iPhone is connected

Stop Auto Sync For All Devices:

1.  Open iTunes

2. Open Preferences

3.  Click Devices

4.  Place check mark in Prevent iPhones, iPods and iPads from syncing automatically

This was tested with an iPhone 3GS on a Mac running iTunes 10.2.2 but it should work on Windows too and with any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch!

If it’s different for you, let us know.

The iOS keyboard is full of little shortcuts to make entering data and in this case internet addresses (URLs) that bit easier and quicker.

Depending on the keyboard you have installed, you may notice when entering a URL into the Safari address bar that there’s a special button labeled ‘.com’.

When pressed this of course inserts the remaining part of the address for you therefore saving you 3 extra taps on the keyboard.

This feature extends even farther though.

By holding down the ‘.com’ key and hidden menu of alternative internet address endings such as ‘.net’ and ‘.org’ will appear.

To get to them, just slide your finger and then let go when you’re over one.

If you have multiple keyboards installed, this list of possible URL endings gets bigger and bigger and goes on to include local country endings such as .fr for France, .it for Italy, .ie for Ireland and .co.uk for UK as well as many Asian countries local URL endings.

I recently tested this on an iPhone 3GS and an iPad 2 both running iOS 4.3.3.

Does it work for you?

When using Safari on your iOS device you can quickly get to your favorite .com ending website by simply typing the middle section of the url, i.e., the word between ‘www.’ and ‘.com’.

So for example, let’s say you want to go to www.imdb.com just type imdb in Safari’s address bar and press Go!

For www.facebook.com just type facebook and press Go and so on and so forth.

In fact, this will work for any web address in .com.

I’ve tested this on Safari on iPad 2, iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch running iOS 4.3.3.

This is true of music and videos too.

In reality, it’s a one way sync, not two.  You can only make changes in iTunes and then sync them down to the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

It sucks but hopefully it will soon change and become a true two way sync.

You can at least delete photos or videos that you took with your device.

Here’s how to do it:

On iPhone or iPod Touch (with camera)

1.  Tap Photos > Camera Roll

2.  Tap the Sharing button (top right corner)

3.  Tap photo(s) that you would like to delete

4.  Tap Delete

5.  Tap Delete Selected Items to confirm

You can also do this through the Camera app itself by accessing the Camera Roll and then following the above steps except the Sharing button is in the bottom left corner.

To remove photos from your device using your PC or Mac:

There’s a few methods for this so I’ll cover the most likely –

On a PC:

1.  Delete or move the photos out of the folders you are syncing with your iOS device.

You can see the folders you’re syncing with your iOS device by opening iTunes, connecting your device, selecting your device and clicking the Photos tab.

2.  Open iTunes

3.  Resync the iPhone, iPod or iPad and the photos will be removed.

On a Mac:

1a.  If you use iPhoto, delete or move the photos you would like removed from your iOS device out of the album(s) you have chosen to sync with your iOS device.

You can see the albums you’re syncing with your iOS device by opening iTunes, connecting your device, selecting your device and clicking the Photos tab.

1b.  If you’re syncing folders, delete or move the photos out of the folders you are syncing with your iOS device.

You can see the folders you’re syncing with your iOS device by opening iTunes, connecting your device, selecting your device and clicking the Photos tab.

2.  Open iTunes

3.  Resync the iPhone, iPod or iPad and the photos will be removed.

This was all tested on iTunes 10.2, iOS 4.3.2 on iPhone 3GS & iPad 2.