Tips: March 2008 Archives

Author: Philip L. Graitcer

You're addicted to your iPhone - you have to check the e-mail, see how your stocks are doing, find out if it's raining back home, and of course, read the hometown paper on the web. Naturally, it's going with you on your overseas vacation. But using your iPhone outside can be expensive; there are stories floating around about four figure bills.

AT&T offers domestic phone plans that include both voice and data services. Your plan probably gives you four hundred or more minutes talk time and unlimited data usage, and on the weekends and evenings, calls are virtually free.

But outside the U.S., voice and data are billed separately and charged by the minute or kilobyte. Keeping your phone bill under control involves understanding how the billing works and how to manage your phone's use of data and voice services.

Author: Damon Brown

Rumors are flying fast about Apple's next move, even just two months after its MacWorld Expo. (Perhaps the lack of a major announcement fueled speculation rather than dampened it.) Aside from the Apple record label - reportedly run by former Def Jam CEO Jay-Z - the hottest talk is on a new iPhone being announced this summer.

In June, at the second MacWorld, several sources say Apple will launch a 3G iPhone. The new phone was supposedly done in time for January's MacWorld, but the argument is that releasing a new iPhone six months after the initial launch would cannibalize Apple's sales.

The 3G iPhone idea became more compelling a few weeks ago when Apple suddenly dropped the price of its cell phone and increased the memory capabilities. The 4 GB iPhone is no more. The cheapest iPhone available is the 8 GB iPhone, which now runs for $399. The new 16 GB is $499.

To the chagrin of early adopters, the iPhone just went through a previous price drop last fall, a couple months after its release, and it's hard not think Apple is making room for new models when it is slashing prices like crazy. As diehard Apple fans know, the company doesn't believe in sales unless it's preparing you for an upgrade. (The iPod Touch is now available at 32GB for $499, but the $399 16GB and the $299 8GB models are still available.)

Third-party companies are also stepping up their iPhone support, making special versions of their Web sites for the iPhone so you won't have to, er, use their regular sites for the iPhone. What you get are miniature sites formatted for the iPhone's screen and touch controls.

Google News Reader
Google has been the default Internet search system on the phone, but just recently adapted its Reader function. Basically a custom RSS feeder, Google Reader allows you to subscribe to your favorite websites and blogs and have the latest posts delivered to one easy-to-read screen. (The same service is available through Google on a regular desktop/laptop.)

To visit your Reader, press the Safari icon to launch the Web browser. Google is the default homepage, so you should be looking at it right now, but just type in www.google.com if it's not. (By the way, if you prefer Yahoo!, go to the Home screen, then press Settings, and finally press the Safari icon. The first option is Search Engine. Press this option to switch your default search engine from Google to Yahoo!)

Once on the Google page, press the new option, Reader. It will then ask you for your e-mail address and password, or, if you don't have one, it will ask you to sign up for free. The next screen will have a link to Add Subscriptions. Press it. You'll find two options: Search and Browse or Feed Bundles.

If you already have a favorite Web site to add, use Search and Browse to type in the URL and add the subscription. You can also use Search and Browse to look for a particular subject - say, "Iceland" - and Google will deliver all the Reader-compatible Web sites related to the topic. Find the appropriate site and press the Subscription link. You can now view the posts from the site, starting with the most recent.

The easier, if more generic method is to use feed bundles, which are groups of like-minded sites mashed together under one selection. For instance, the News bundle has six different feeds: BBC News (World), Christian Science Monitor, ESPN.com, Google News, MarketWatch.com, and NPR Podcast (7 am EST).

Google Reader offers more than a dozen different feed bundles, from Cars to Technology, and the number of bundles, as well as the number of feeds included in each bundle, will likely grow quickly. The full list of Feed Bundles is below the Search and Browse option. Press the plus button to subscribe to a bundle or touch the feed listing to see what feeds are included in the package.

Encyclopedia Britannica in Hand
Equally valuable is Encyclopedia Britannica's new portable website, i.eb.com. Based on the popular knowledge series, Britannica Mobile iPhone Edition is kind of like a handheld Wikipedia with credentialed contributors.

They keep it simple: Press the small, subtle grey Search icon in the upper right hand corner. Type in a topic or item - say, "Akira" - and it will give you a listing of all entries: director Akira Kurosawa, scientist Akira Fujishima, and so on. In this case, there is no mention of the groundbreaking 1988 anime Akira - pop cultural milestones aren't Britannica's strength - but clicking on the Kurosawa, the famed director of Ran and The Seven Samurai, will give you a thorough, accurate biography, one perhaps a little too long to read on the iPhone.

Let Your Fingers Tap Through the Yellow Pages
Finally, Yellow Pages has created a special Web site for the iPhone, www.yellowpages.com. (It is literally www.yellowpages.com/yphone, but the site will automatically detect your device.)

If your experience is anything like mine, the iPhone Google Maps search engine can be less than reliable when it comes to smaller locations, out-of-the-way towns and, most notably, directions. After testing it, Yellow Pages seems to have solid number information, map details and even information on store hours, billing practices (cash only, etc.) and user ratings.

About the Author
Damon Brown wrote the "Pocket Idiot's Guide to the iPhone" (Alpha/Penguin Books). Available on August 7, you can preorder it at Amazon or your favorite online bookstore. Damon also writes for Playboy, SPIN and The New York Post.