Do you fancy to have the iPhone 3GS functionality but are currently stuck with the iPhone 3G and are not planning to upgrade your current iPhone 3G in the near future?

Below are 3 Applications that can help transform your iPhone 3G to have features that are similar to the iPhone 3GS for FREE:-

This application “Say N Dial” has the similar functionality as the Voice Dial feature of the iPhone 3GS. Please take note that if you have many contacts of very similar names, this application may not work very well as it may tend to confuse itself with similar sounding names. So, do not be surprised if you ended up calling someone that you do not originally wanted to call using this app.

Ever wanted to have the Zoom and Flash functionality of the iPhone 3GS? This application is a great one to do just that. It allows you to capture images and will do a modification on the captured image to make it looks brighter. It also allows you to perform a zoom whenever you want to. This is certainly an application that i will recommend for those of you who do a lot of photo-taking using the iPhone.

The iPhone 3GS comes with the standard battery indicator on the top right corner of the phone. If you are using the iPhone 3G and would like to know the remaining battery life on your iPhone 3G, you may want to consider installing this app. It provides a good estimation of the remaining minutes that the iPhone can last if it is put on standby mode, talktime mode on 2G/3G network, internet browsing mode on EDGE/3G/Wifi as well as video or audio mode when using the iPod function.

Of course, these are not going to fully replace the iPhone 3GS functionality. It is however a good or reasonable compromise to enhance the iPhone 3G handset. Have fun testing out these functionalities and do drop us a comment if you have found better apps that can do the tricks.

i have just spoken to a few of my friends who are using the iPhone just to find out if they know this already. To my surprise, some of them do not know this yet. So, i have to make this posting just to let some of the iPhone users who have overlooked on this basic functionality on the iPhone headset. If you already know this, you may just ignore this posting.

Below is a picture of the iPhone headset that comes with your iPhone:-

You can actually click on the Microphone/Clicker to answer phone calls when you are using your headset. Since there is no “button” on the microphone/clicker, many iPhone users may have mistakenly assumed that there is no clicker on the headset. So, this is going to be a real short posting to alert those who may have overlooked this only.  :-)

If you did not sign up for the unlimited data package when you purchased your iPhone, then you may want to consider tracking the monthly data usage on your iPhone. This is because if you are on a pay-per-use data plan or even the iValue or iData plans offered by Maxis(sole telco providing the iPhone in Malaysia currently), there is a limit or cap of data that is bundled to your iValue or iData packages. Usage above the bundled data packages will be charged separately. Hence, tracking the data usage is important to prevent any “surprises” in your bills at the end of the month.

In order to track your monthly data usage manually, you may go to Settings>General>Usage. After clicking these, you will see the usage screenshot similar to the one as shown below:-

Under the “Cellular Network Data”, you should be able to see the data sent and received. In order to track the monthly data usage, you can click on the “Reset Statistics” at the bottom of the screen. The total data usage is the sum of the Sent and Received data indicated on your iPhone. After you reset the statistics, all usage will be reset to zero. You will need to manually reset the statistics right after the bill cycle date of your monthly statement. In this way, you will be able to track the monthly usage beginning each bill cycle. By tracking your monthly data usage this way, there should not be any more surprises on the mobile statements at the end of each month due to the data usage.  :-)

If you are doing something on your iPhone and wanted to show the screenshot of what you are doing on your iPhone, there is a way to create a screenshot and save it as an image. The trick is to hold on the “Sleep” button at the top right of your iPhone and then click on the “Home” button” while still holding onto the “Sleep” button. You will then hear a “click” sound as if a picture has been taken. The image of the screenshot is then saved in your camera roll. Go there to retrieve the new image file of the screenshot of your iPhone.

Below is a screenshot of the iPhone that i have saved as an image file after doing the 2 steps above:-

If you fancy having a collection of cool ringtones on your iPhone and am not prepared to fork out your own money to purchase it from the iTunes store just yet, you may want to consider creating it on your own. This will work with songs imported from CDs into your iTunes.

Below are the summary of steps to do it:-

1.  Select the song from your iTunes Library that you want to create a new ringtone with.

2.  Right click on it and goto “Get info” and then to “Options”.

3. Trim the selected song using “Start Time” and “Stop Time” to get the right section of the song that you wanted to create into the new ringtone. Keep this to less than 30 seconds in order for iTunes to be able to recognize it as a ringtone later. Click “OK” to save it.

4.  Right click on the song and go to “Create AAC version”. A new file of the song will be generated in the AAC format.

5.  Drag and drop this new file to your desktop.

6.  Delete the copy of the AAC file from your general Music list (because I don’t think you want to have ringtones randomly playing next time you do a song shuffle…). Also, set the original song back to normal by accessing the “Get info” and “Options” and by unchecking the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” boxes.

7.  The ringtone that you have just dragged onto your desktop should have a title “songname.m4a.” Now, simply change the file extension(by renaming it) from .m4a to .m4r.

8.  Drag and drop the new “songname.m4r” back to your iTunes Library under “Ringtones”.

9.  Synchronize it with your iPhone and you will have created a new ringtone which is ready to use!

As always, to make it easier for you to follow the steps above, you may want to view the video below which shows you step-by-step on how to do this. Today, i have created 5 new ringtones(from my favourite songs) for my iPhone and all this was done within 30 minutes. If i can do it, so can you…..Go ahead and start creating new ringtones yourself if you have not done it before.

This is a question i have been asked quite a lot lately. So, i figured it would be good if i can put this information on this blog so that it can benefit those who(are just as paranoid as myself about leaving credit card details on the internet!!) does not want to provide their credit card details when signing up for the iTunes account. The “trick” is quite simple actually…… Just go purchase a FREE Application on the iTunes and when asked whether to create a new iTunes account or to login to an existing one, just choose to create a new account. Of course, before you can access this, you will need to download the latest iTunes software from Apple. It is normally located at the following website:-

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

After downloading the software, just do as per what is described above i.e. to do a purchase of free Apps on the iTunes store and then create an account. When you reach the payment details information, there will be an extra “None” button(on the right hand side after the different types of credit cards) that you can choose to complete the iTunes account setup without providing your credit card details.

If you need a little more help in this, you may also watch the below video which shows you step-by-step how this is done.

One of the biggest wish list for most iPhone users that i know of is that it would be great to have a longer battery life. While we may not have much control about the battery that is being used in an iPhone, there are multiple ways that we can do to enhance the life of the battery of our iPhones.

Below are 6 things that i personally do to enhance the battery life on my iPhone so that it can last longer with a single charge(considering the fact that i am quite a heavy iPhone user!):-

1.  Switch off the wifi network – this will prevent your iPhone from constantly searching for new wifi hotspots to hook on. Even if this option is turned off, all your known/saved wifi network will still be automatically connected when you are within the area. What this does is that if the search for wifi network is off, the iPhone will not search for any other wifi network unless you manually instruct it to do so. Do this and you will see some significant savings in your battery life.

2.  Turn off location services if you do not have any intentions of using your GPS or if you are not using any applications that requires to access where you are located.

3.  Turn off your 3G if you are in an area of low 3G coverage or if you do not have an intention to use the 3G. 3G networks typically sucks more battery from mobile devices compared to 2G.

4. Turn off your bluetooth if you do not have any intention to use it.

5.  Turn off the auto-brightness settings in your iPhone and set it manually to dimmer backlight settings. Of course, do not turn it so low until it strains your eyes when reading from your iPhone. The iPhone device is a gadget that we are supposed to feel good using.

6.  Turn the “push” email off and switch it to “fetch”. Using “push” email will typically drain more battery as compared to when it is switched to “fetch”.

To illustrate this better, below is a short video on some of the things that you can do to save battery.

If you are not currently practicing some of the things listed here, i would strongly recommend that you test them out to see if it helps in conserving the battery life of your iPhone. With a longer battery life, you can be more productive when you are mobile.