Everything You Need to Know About Your iPhone Part 3

Generate Custom iPhone Ring tones from iTunes Song Samples

With this hack, you'll be able to use almost any of Apple's free 30-second song previews in iTunes, which happen to be available for every track in the vast music store, to create custom ring tones for your iPhone.

Here's a brief outline of the steps involved:

The first step is to create a new playlist of un-purchased songs, export that playlist, and then save it as text. When you open it up, locate the URLs for the audio files you want as ring tones; using those Web addresses, download the 30-second snippets of the songs.

Once the audio samples are downloaded, rename the tracks — giving them a name (while keeping the .m4p file extensions) that's more meaningful to you than Apple's obscure file designations. That way the tracks will be more easily recognizable for the songs they represent when you go to use them as a ringtone.

You'll be able to do that last bit after loading the files onto the iPhone. Once they're on the device, you simply pick the file you want to use as a ringtone just like you would with the ringtones Apple pre-loaded. The 30-second song previews you just added are now listed in Settings --> Sound --> Ringtone along with these other tones.

MegaPhone Brings Disc Mode to iPhones

MegaPhone, formerly called iPhoneDrive ($9.95), fromEcammNetwork, allows you to use your iPhone for file storage, something you can't do with Apple's iPod/smartphone combo out-of-the-box, as there's no diskmode for iPhones like there is for iPods.

Launching MegaPhone brings up the utility's browser window and toolbar. It is from there you can transfer files and folders back and forth between your Mac OS X computer and iPhone.

There are two ways to perform transfers to an iPhone: Drag and drop content from the Mac Desktop or a Finder window into the MegaPhone browser or click the "Copy To iPhone" button on the toolbar.

To do the reverse, you can either click the "Copy From iPhone" button on the toolbar to move highlighted files or folders to a location of your choosing on the computer; drag content directly from the MegaPhone browser window into a Finder window or onto the Desktop; or simply double-click a file to download it to your Documents folder.

With MegaPhone, you can also create folders on and delete files or folders from your iPhone.

You can't view content you've transferred from your computer on the iPhone with MegaPhone, however, as the software is for storage purposes only.


Access 160 (And Counting)iPhone Applications

iPhone users should check out www.iphoneappr.com through the SafariWeb browser on their device. They'll find a site that lists and delivers access to 160 (and counting) applications that are iPhone compatible.

The interface is easy to navigate and software is divided by categories, including Business & Finance, Email & Chat, Games, Miscellaneous, Multimedia, News & Sports, School, Search Apps, Shopping, Social Networking and Tools. It also compiles a list of the Top 10 Apps and allows users to search the entire application database. Right now, the only third-party applications that are available for the iPhone run through Safari and are accessible when connected to the Internet—either through Wi-Fi or AT&T's EDGE network.

They do not run on the iPhone itself. Because of this, most of the software listed at www.iphoneappr.com should run on most any smartphone or desktop computer. They've been specifically formatted for the iPhone's display, however.

Typically, a listing offers a short description of the application, a live demo, user ratings, and a button to launch the title on your iPhone. Launching the application means you'll be led to the Web site where the software is being hosted.

Troubleshooting Wi-Fi Connection Problems

Apple has posted a series of tips to help you manage Wi-Fi connections with an iPhone or iPod Touch, which is essentially the same as the former, but without phone features and some other functions.

The first tip offers advice on what to do when you're having trouble connecting with a wireless connection to a paid commercial hotspot, such as the ones available at Borders and Starbucks. It suggests renewing the hotspots DHCP lease. To do that:

1. Tap Settings > Wi-Fi Networks, then pick the network you are trying to connect to.

2. In the DHCP panel, select the Renew Lease button.

If that doesn't work, see iPhone Basic Troubleshooting at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305740

It then leads into a couple of tips that involve the iPhone's cellular-data EDGE capability.

For example, Apple explains what to do if your Wi-Fi connection keeps reverting to EDGE. That's when your iPhone looks like it is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi, but goes to EDGE when you try to access a Web page. This can happen when the wireless router is using MAC Address Filtering and the iPhone's MAC address hasn't been entered into the filter list or when you've entered a WEP password wrong.


Here's what Apple suggests:

If MAC Address Filtering is enabled on the wireless router, make sure iPhone's Wi-Fi address (in Settings > General > About) is entered into the router's filter. See the documentation that came with your wireless router for additional information.

If you experience this and use a WEP Password, on the iPhone tap Settings > Wi-Fi. Then tap More Info ( > ) next to the Wi-Fi network name and tap Forget this Network. Then try accessing the Wi-Fi network again. Alternatively, turn off WEP encryption on the wireless router.

Additional tips include what to do if there's a weak iPhone Wi-Fi signal, you receive the "unable to join Network Failure (error -3)," and when there's no Internet access when switching networks.