iPhone 4 for Dummies: Turn the iPhone to silent

The best way to turn your iPhone on silent is to using the Ring/Silent switch.  That's the switch on the far right of the picture on the right.



Undoubtly, we forget to turn our mobiles to silent sometimes.  When it does ring in a meeting, I am frantically finding a way silence it.

The good news is that if you were to press the volume buttons located on the side of the iPhone, the ringing stops.  However, you can't reject a call that way.

My preferred method is by pressing the physical ON/OFF button on the top right corner.

1st push of the ON/OFF button stops the ringing.

2nd push of the ON/OFF button will reject the call.

iPhone 4 for Dummies: Display numeric percentage % battery life

By default, your iPhone does not display the % (percentage) of battery charge remaining on your mobile.

To get this to display you just need to follow these 4 easy steps:

1) Click on the <Settings> icon

2) Select <General>

3) Select <Usage>

4) In the first row, you will see <Battery Percentage>, toggle this field to "ON".

That's it!  You should be able to see the % battery life left on the top right hand corner where the little battery icon is.

Check your iPhone 4: Gyroscope

I have only gotten my iPhone 4 about a week ago.  

There were a couple of features I wanted to have a look at myself.  One of them was the gyroscope on the iPhone 4.  

I downloaded the gyroscope app from iTunes here. 

Fired up the Gyroscope and started tilting the iPhone left to right, up and down.  Then on the spot I was standing on, I turned around with the iPhone turning with me and watch as the app reported how many degrees I was turned.  Impressive!

This will be a neat feature to see in upcoming augmented reality apps.  Go try it out yourself!

iPhone 4 FaceTime Data Usage

Ever wanted to use FaceTime using 3G?  Good news is that you can.

You can always purchase a Mifi (3G modem) to provide a wifi connection over 3G.  iPhone 4 will only allow FaceTime when you're on wifi.

 

9to5Mac has provided some indicative numbers as to how much data FaceTime uses.

Happy FaceTiming!

Life's still great without Flash on iPhone

I have been using my iPhone for a while now, and haven't found the need for Flash.

To date, I am happy to say that life is great without Flash. Even when I am on the PC, I hardly pay any attention to Flash websites.

To understand why, I should explain how I use my iPhone.

I tend to use it when traveling to and from work. I read the news, technology, sports and social information. That is more than enough to help fill up my time. Mainstream websites redirect your mobile browser to their mobile websites. Where the information is purely textual. This means that your news loads up fast without all that mumbo jumbo content you don't need.

Flash was first created in 1996. Realistically, people started using Flash around 2000. So let's assume that Flash has been around for almost a decade. Can you think of any Flash based websites that you use daily? I can think of none.

Depending on your lifestyle, the additional freedom of Flash is not worth the time. When choosing the iPhone, you will choose a simpler and better user experience. When you purchase apps from iTunes, you can are confident that it is secure (eg. Android apps tend to have more security issues as blogged here).

Protect yourself from iOS4 security issue

Some of you might have heard about the security breach in iPhone 4's Safari.

Basically this happens only when you visit a malicious site and open a PDF file.  This compromised PDF file can contain some special code in the font and create something called a stack overflow.  This code can gain access to the phone and control the device. 

Apple has already fixed this problem and an OS update will be coming soon. 

Here's what you can do in the meantime to protect yourself from this:

1. Don't visit sites you do not trust;
2. Alternatively, use Opera Mini for the iPhone in iTunes, as there aren't any reports on that yet;
3. For those who like jailbreaking, that's also an option.

Speed up iOS4 on iPhone 3G - Part 2

Turning off Spotlight as described in my earlier blog did produce any significant speed increase.

However, after upgrading my iPhone to iOS 4.01, it did help.....   a little.

To update your OS, plug your iPhone into your Mac or PC.  In iTunes, click on the iPhone device in the left hand panel.  Then click on the [Check for Update] button.  Follow the prompts.

Apple is planning for another update to the OS, to correct issues with the iPhone 4 proximity sensor and Safari vulnerability.