MacMost: Making the most of your Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone.

   The MacMost Guide to the iPhone is a collection of articles and blog posts that will help you get the most from your iPhone. With each article, we’ve included some helpful tips and things you may not have known about.
    We’ll be adding to the guide to cover updates, new applications and features. You can also leave comments with each article to share your own tips and ticks with others.
    Select a topic below:
   
Third Party Applicatons:
     Check out the MacMost iPhone Apps Directory.

 Guide to iPhone SMS Text Application

 Guide to the iPhone Calendar Application

 Guide to the iPhone Photo Albums Application

 Guide to the iPhone Camera

 Guide to YouTube on the iPhone

 Guide to the iPhone Stocks

 Guide to iPhone Maps Application

 Guide to the iPhone Weather Application

 Guide to the iPhone Clock

 Guide to the iPhone Calculator

 Guide to the iPhone Notes

 Guide to the iPhone iTunes Store

 Guide to the iPhone Phone Application

 Guide to the iPhone Contacts Application

 Guide to the iPhone Mail Application

 Guide to the iPhone Safari

 Guide to the iPhone iPod Application

 Setting Up an iPhone Email Account

 

 Guide to iPhone Cases

   The iPod application on the iPhone offers you dozens of ways to browse your audio and video files and play them. You can list your content by Playlist, Artist, Composer, Album, Song or Genre. There are also ways to view only Videos, Compilations and Audiobooks.
   
    You can also turn your iPhone sideways to look at your music in Coverflow, the album-cover-clipping mode also used in iTunes and on iPods.
   
    When the iPod is playing a song, you will get a screen with the album artwork and controls on the top and bottom.
   
    At the bottom, you have a volume slider, a back, pause/play and forward button. Press the pause play button in the middle to pause the song.

   At the top of the screen, you will see the name of the artist, song and album. You have buttons to take you back to the previous screen, or to an album song listing.
    If you tap near the top of the screen you will get more controls: a repeat/loop button, a time scrub control, the current time into the track and time remaining, and a shuffle control. The time scrubber is particularly useful for moving to a section in a long podcast.

   The Web browser in the iPhone is a version of Safari found on both Mac and Windows. In fact, it is almost the same browser, right down to obscure features such as a JavaScript drawing canvas and drop-shadow effects not found in other browsers.
    What is missing from the iPhone version are a lot of interface elements. Instead of dozens of menu items and settings, we’ve only got a handful of buttons on the iPhone version of Safari. Plus, we lose features like multiple windows and tabs, which are replaced with something in-between.
    When viewing a Web page in Safari, you get A search button (magnifying glass) at the upper left, the current URL in a field, and a refresh button (circle arrow) to the upper right. At the bottom, you have left and right arrows, a + button to add the page to your bookmarks, a bookmarks button and a page button.
   
    If you tap on the URL address field at the top of the screen, you can enter any URL using a keyboard. You will also get a second field for searching using Google. You can also switch to use Yahoo search in the iPhone settings for Safari.
    The pages button puts Safari into Pages mode, where you can flip to the left and right to view multiple windows. Use the New Button at the bottom of the page to create a new window. You can tap the red X button at the upper left of a page to remove that window.
   
    When viewing a Web page, you can pinch and stretch the screen with two fingers to zoom in on areas. You can tap and move your finger to move around on the page. However, Web designers can set their pages to not allow this if the page is already formatted nicely for the screen. You can also turn your iPhone horizontally to get a wide-screen view.

   When you tap on a data entry field, a keyboard appears to allow you to enter in data. If the field is a pop-up list of items, you will get a scrolling wheel of choices.
   
    The bookmarks in Safari include a History listing that shows you recently visited Web pages. The rest should sync with the Bookmarks on you Mac’s Safari browser.
    To edit bookmarks, click on the Edit button at the bottom. Then you can tap the bookmark to edit its name, location or move it to another bookmark folder.
    With the Edit button depressed, you can also tap and drag items by the right right to move them up or down in the list. Tapping on the red circle on the left will allow you to delete the bookmark.

   To create an iPhone email account, go to the iPhone Settings, tap the Mail item. This will take you to the main Mail preference. Under a list of current accounts, you will also see categories for Message and Sending. Probably best to set those up first.
   

   There are also some choices under the Sending category.

   To create a new email account, tap the “Add Account…” item that is at the bottom of the Accounts category. You will then be given a number of choices: Y! Mail (Yahoo Mail), Gmail (Google Mail), .Mac, AOL, and Other.
   
    The first four allow you to quickly and easily add email accounts from four of the major Web-based email providers. When you select one of these, all you need to do is your name used in the account, your email address associated with the account, the account password, and a description to display on the iPhone to identify the account.
   

   Selecting Other is how you would go about setting up an email account to any other email service. You get three choices: IMAP, POP, Exchange. Most email accounts would be POP (Post Office Protocol). Some more advanced new servers may offer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). The difference between them is basically that POP email stores email on the server until you retrieve it. IMAP stores and manages email on the server, and you view it and take actions by accessing the server directly. So IMAP email is easier to share between two computers, like a desktop and a laptop, or a computer and a device like the iPhone. With IMAP, you can read, reply and move an email and all devices accessing the account will show these actions. With POP, all of hat takes place on your local computer, so other devices won’t even know the email existed.
    When creating a POP or IMAP email account on your iPhone, you will need to enter a lot of information that should be available from your Internet service provider. However, if you already have this account set up on your Mac, you can simply go to Mail on your Mac, and look at the Preferences for that Account. Everything except your password will be visible, and you can simply copy your settings.
   
    You can also access email using Exchange server. To do this, you must have IMAP access turned on on the Exchange server. Then create an account and enter the information required.
    Once you have set up an account, you can edit its settings. An “Advanced” option is at the bottom of these settings and should be set up immediately.
   

   There are also some Outgoing Settings. You can set Use SSL, AUthentication and Server Port for outgoing mail as well.

   The iPhone Email application lets you receive emails from standard email accounts using POP (Post Office Protocol), IMAP or Microsoft Exchange server. To set up an email account on your iPhone, see the article on setting up an iPhone email account.
    Once you have an email account or two set up on your iPhone, simply tap the Mail application and you will get either the Account screen, the main screen for the last account you were viewing, or the inbox for the last account you were viewing. It depends on where you last were when using Mail.
   

   If you are viewing the inbox, you can simply tap on an email to view the email. You can also swipe left to right to bring up a delete button. Or, to delete email you can tap the Edit button at the upper right and you will get red buttons to the left of each email. Tap those to bring up a Delete button.

   When you view an email, you will see the From and To fields at the top of the screen, and the message below. You will also see any additional recipients, such as people that are CC’ed. You can hide the recipients by tapping the word “Hide” at the upper right.
   
    At the top of the screen are buttons that take you back to the inbox, and arrows that let you page through all of the messages in your inbox.
    While looking at a message, you will also see any attachments. The iPhone can actually open and display a lot of different attachment types, such as PDF (Adobe Acrobat), Word, Excel and many image file types. It can also play many sound and video file attachment.

   At the bottom of the message, you can see buttons that perform various functions. The first button, a circle/arrow, will retrieve more email from the server. The second button, a folder with a down arrow, will allow you to move the message out of the inbox to another folder. The trash can lets you delete the message. The arrow pointing left will let you Reply, Reply to all of the recipients, or Forward the message. The last button, a pencil with a box, lets you start composing a new message.
    Moving the message to another folder won’t work unless the account on the server is set up with multiple folders. Most POP accounts won’t have anything except Inbox, Sent and Trash. But Web-based email like Yahoo and Gmail give you the ability to create other folders.
   
    When you start composing a new message, you would usually first enter the recipients email address, or use the + button to add one from your Contacts. You can skip the Cc line unless you want to send a copy of the email to someone else as well. Then you can enter a subject.
    Finally, enter a message. Your default signature is automatically included in the message.

   The iPhone phone application allows you to make calls over your mobile network. In addition to containing the Contacts application, and being able to make a call from a Conact listing, you can also press the keypad button at the bottom of the screen to bring up a traditional phone keypad.
   
    One nice thing about the iPhone phone keypad is you have a backspace button, so you don’t need to start all over again if you make a mistake in entering a number.
    You can also enter a phone number in the keypad, and then press the + button at the lower left to simply create a contact for the number you’ve entered.
    Once you place a call, you will get a set of buttons: Mute, Keypad, Speaker, Add Call, Hold and Contacts. The Hold, Mute and Speaker buttons do as you would expect. The Keypad allows you to enter in touch-tones if you are calling an automated system. Add Call allows you to call someone else and create a conference call. The Contacts button lets you view and edit contacts while talking.
   

   The Recents button at the bottom of the Phone application allows you to see and redial phone numbers you have recently called or have called you.

   The iPhone Contacts Application is hidden inside the Phone application, but it is, in fact a version of the Address Book that comes with Mac OS. To get to it, press on the Phone icon and then the Contacts button at the bottom of the screen. You will see a list of contacts that you can scroll through.
   

   You can select a contact to edit them, or start an email to them or call them. To add a new contact, click on the + symbol to the right at the top.
   
    You can enter multiple phone numbers, set a specific ringtone to use when you get a call from this contact, and then add other info like email address and Web site. Click on the Add Field item at the bottom to add a Prefix, Middle Name, Suffix, Nickname, Job Title, Department, Birthday, Note or even Phonetic spellings of the contact’s name.
    You can also add a photo by clicking on the Add Photo item at the upper left. Then you have the option to take a photo of the person, assuming they are standing right in front of you at the moment, or choose a photo from your Photo Albums. The photo will appear when that person calls you on your iPhone.

   When viewing a contact, you can also send them a text message, and add them to your favorites. A list of favorites is an alternative to looking at your full contacts list. You can access your favorites by pressing on the Favorites button at the bottom of the Phone application.

   The iPhone stocks application is a simple app that displays the current stock price of a list of stocks that you provide.
   
    The main screen shows the stock symbol, the current price, and the relative change for the day. Red is used to indicate a falling price, green to show a rising price. The chart at the bottom of the screen shows graph of the stock price for the selected stock.
    Pressing the i button at the bottom right of the screen will bring up the list of stocks you are tracking so you can edit them. You can click on the button to the left of the stock to delete it from your list. You can also click on the % or Numbers buttons on the bottom to choose to display a percentage of change, rather than actual dollars per share value.
    You can re-arrange the stocks by pressing and dragging the right end of the stock line up or down.
   
    To add a stock, press on the + button at the top of the screen. You can then type the symbol of the stock or the stock name and it will look up the stock symbol for you.

   The iPhone Weather application allows you to quickly view the local weather and a five-day forecast. It shows the forecasted high and low temperature, and a weather icon, such as sunny, or partly cloudy.
   
    You can have several locations in the weather app. Just press and flip to the right or left to move between locations. The dots at the bottom of the screen show how many locations you have, and the white dot shows your position in the locations list.
    If you click on the i button at the bottom right, you can see the cities you are following, and click on the button to the left of each to delete them. You can also press and drag the right side of each item to move it up and down in the list. The bottom of the screen allows you to switch your preference between Fahrenheit and Celsius.
   
    You can also click on the + button at the top of the screen to look up another location and add it to the list.
   
    Weather data is provided by Yahoo!.

   The iPhone camera is a 2 megapixel (1,200 x 1,600) digital camera. It has almost no features: no flash, focus or zoom. When you bring up the camera interface, it has only one button, at the bottom of the screen. Press this button and it will take a picture.
   
    Once you have taken a picture, the camera application stores it on your phone in the Camera Roll photo album and gets ready to take another picture. You can also press the button at the bottom left corner to go to the Camera Roll. This is essentially the same as viewing the Camera Roll in the Photo Albums application.

   
    From here, you can move back and forward in the Camera Roll, start a slideshow, throw away the picture, or press the button at the bottom left. This will bring up four choices: Use As Wallpaper, Email Photo, Assign To Contact, and Send to Web Gallery.