iPhone Tip: Beyond .com

If you work in education or otherwise make frequent use of domains that do NOT end in ".com", you may have felt ever so slightly left out the first time you entered a url (that's what dorks call a web address) in Safari on your iPhone. The ".com" button in that bottom right corner is just not that inclusive, is it?

Fear not! You can actually end your urls with .net, .org or .edu as well with just one (extended) click. (Sorry, .mil, .gov, foreign countries, etc., you were sacrificed to the screen real estate gods.) Next time you are entering a url, hold down the ".com" and up they pop. Thank god you don't have to hunt and peck for those last three letters anymore!

Credit goes entirely to my Mac-obsessed friend for this little tidbit. She knows who she is!

Next up, a not iPhone-related post, promise.

iPhone Tip: Taking a Screenshot

My Home Screen
My guess is that many an iPhone user has discovered a random image in his or her Camera Roll that looks suspiciously familiar.

Well, if you are one of these people, using an iPhone running version 2.0 or later of the firmware, you probably accidentally took a screenshot (for the non-techs out there, this is exactly what it sounds like, a picture of your current screen).

To do this deliberately, simply click the home button and the power button at the same time (or hold down the home button, then click the power button). You should see the screen flash white for a moment but otherwise be unchanged. You can do this from inside an application, while sending mail, or anywhere else. When you go to Photos, then Camera Roll, you should see any screenshots you've taken.

Whether you're documenting a strange bug, succinctly sharing the apps you use, or just think something looks cool, this comes in handy every now and then. Or at least explains random photos appearing in your Camera Roll.

iPhone Tip: Less Other Please

Have you ever been irritated at whatever the "Other" is that is taking up space on your iPhone? It's the orange section of the bar of the Capacity indicator on the Summary screen on iTunes.

"Other" is iTunes catch-all category for everything that isn't Audio, Video, Photos or Apps. Presumably this includes contacts, crash reports, illegitimate ringtones and who knows what else. Well, my "Other" had crept up to 338.8 MB.

Just for kicks, I restored my phone to see if doing so might help. I lost some settings here and there (my phone doesn't lock now, e.g.) and your applications will be in a different order, but for the most part, everything was pretty much as it was when I last backed up, including application data. I did find rearranging the applications (over five pages) pretty tedious -- Apple really needs to come up with a cleverer way to allow folks to organize their apps.

Now my "Other" is 294.8 MB. That's a 44 MB difference, so for me, a worthwhile exercise. Hopefully I won't regret it at a later date. Now that I think about it, I wonder if this might clean up iPods as well...

(Side note: I'm using the latest iPhone OS 2.2.1)