TIP: iPhone Email Batch Delete

With the iPhone 2.0 upgrade you will find that Apple has added the ability for users to delete or move multiple message from your email inbox to a folder or delete them. In the original version of iPhone, you have to perform these basic functions with messages one at a time.

When you are in your email inbox and you press the Edit key in the upper right hand corner a blue/gray bar will appear across the bottom with two buttons: Delete and Move. Down the left side of the message summary, you'll see round buttons and if you press them it will place a check mark next to the message you wish to act upon. You may select consecutive messages or intermitten ones and then either press the Delete button to remove them or Move button to store them to another folder.

TIP: Smart Keyboard for URL Completion

When I got my iPhone 1.0 and grew accustomed to using the touch screen keyboard, I thought it was really smart of Apple to add context sensitive keys to the keyboard.

For instance, when you are in Safari browser and want to type a URL, it adds a key .com to the keyboard to shorten your typing task. However, I found that not all URLs end in .com and was frustrated with .net, .org and other endings. With 2.0 Apple has made the keyboard even smarter.

Now in Safari web browser, when typing a new URL, hold down the .com button to get a selection of other domain name endings for the url: .net .edu and .org. By tapping on one of the endings, it will append it to complete your URL. The iPhone is even smart enough to understand if you are outside the U.S. and offers domain extensions appropriate to the country you are in.

Another new keyboard trick added with iPhone 2.0 allows you to get .net .edu or .org domain name endings along with .com by holding down the period (.) button in the compose email screen.

TIP: Making Your Own Currency Converter

An item missing from the core set of Apple iPhone utilities is a Currency Converter app built-in. As you can see from this iPhone screen capture, using the Stocks app you can track daily currency fluctuations just like stocks:

1. Go to the stocks app
2. Add a new stock
3. Use the format Currency symbol 1 plus Currency symbol 2 (without space between) =X (example to convert US Dollar to Canadian Dollar would be USDCAD=X or for the Euro it would be USDEUR=X)

A nice thing about this approach to tracking currency information is daily rates will be listed with other stock market information and you will see the daily +/- change, a day/month/year history of the currency plotted on a graph just like other stocks in the Stocks app.

Add as many world currency entries as you want. You can get currency symbols here or do a search for world currency symbols in Yahoo or Google.

TIP: Capturing Images Off the Net

A long awaited and much anticipated feature of iPhone 2.0 is the ability of the phone to capture an image off the internet and save them to the phone. Apple has made this process very simple and elegant.

This is how it works: find an image on a web site you want to capture, hold your finger on the image in iPhone's Safari Browser for a longer time than usual, a pop-up dialog will appear giving you options "Save Image", "Open Link" and "Cancel". Hitting "Save Image" will save the image in your Photo Gallery.

Now, just add copy and paste feature for text, address, and calendar items and we'll be happier!

TIP: iPhone Screen Capture

One feature added to the new iPhone 2.0 operating system is the ability to capture whatever is on your screen at the moment with a button combination. Hold down Apple's Home key and then the Sleep/Awake key on the top right corner of the iPhone (the same key you tap to start up your iPhone from sleep).

Once the button combination has been struck, you will notice the iPhone screen flash white. After it does that, go to your photo gallery and you will see the last addition is your screen capture.

Next, in the lower left hand corner of your photo gallery screen, you'll see a box with and arrow coming out toward you. Click on it and you can send this photo to your email or if you have MobileMe, you can send it to your web gallery. This is awesome!