So you don’t want to waste any money in iPhone stands nor care about looks. You are looking for a stand where you can have your iPhone in portrait mode to read, listen to music and use most apps and also in landscape mode to watch movies too. You are lucky because thanks to one of the best inventions in the world… Yes! you got it right, the toilet paper roll! With just a single roll we can create a highly customized iPhone stand without too much effort or complex professional tools. It will just take you 60 seconds to create (without counting step 1). Keep reading for step-by-step instructions.

Instructions

1. First of all, finish a toilet paper roll as you would normally do (no image will be provided for this step).

2. Now get the roll and some scissors and cut it along the dashed line like in the following image:

3. You are done!

If you would like your cheapest iPhone stand to also be able to charge the iPhone… What?! Srsly? Yea! the cheapest iPhone stand can also charge your iPhone while it’s on it. Just cut an extra whole in the back like in the following image and put your cable in:

So that’s how you get a free iPhone stand. In fact, this stand will work for any phone so Androids are also welcome. Furthermore, I guess you could use a kitchen paper roll to create the cheapest iPad stand too.

Did you like this DIY tutorial? Share and tweet it to your friends and Apple fans!

These iPhone apps are must-haves

The most important apps in my iPhone.

Reeder

By far the most used app in my iPhone. Reeder is an RSS feed reader that gathers all your feeds from your favourite websites (blogs, newspapers, comics, etc.) and displays them all in a nice ordered list ready for you to read one after another. But that’s not all, its offline caching ability allows you to download up to 5000 new articles/posts in just 10 seconds and then read them anywhere (tube, airplane, pub or even bathroom) without needing an Internet connection or 3G. Since I’ve got this app I no longer get the free newspaper every morning as I can read tons of online newspapers in my iPhone and I get to read news that happened a few minutes ago. I prefer how MobileRSS Pro works but it is incredibly buggy and Reeder synchronises incredibly well with Google Reader.

Rating: 9/10. Use it 3 times a day. £1.79

RememberTheMilk

The best Get Things Done app ever. RememberTheMilk is my favourite To-Do list. Since I started using this app I have improved my personal and professional organisation a lot. The simplicity of the app is something I still find surprising. You open the app, tap, enter a task and a time such as “meeting w john 8:55” and RTM will remind you on the task at 8:55 (if today is later than 8:55 then it adds it for tomorrow). There are many date shortcuts such as “next tue” or “august” and also features such as priority, repetition, lists, tags, location or sharing. Another nice touch and well done feature is the reminder notification, you can fully customise it to your liking with the perfect sound and timing. The web interface is also great and full of features in a beautiful and simple interface which allows you to either use it for a couple features or utilize its maximum power. Wunderlist is very nice but not as featured as RTM.

Rating: 10/10. Use it 2-5 times a day. Free or £15/year

You should get an iPhone just for this

Anyone without a smartphone should get one immediately just because of these ones.

Skype

Free national and international calls to smartphones and computers at anytime. That is something really amazing. Just for that, people should invest in a smartphone and recycle their old mobile phone. For the chat I stay with Imo app as I find the Skype chat pretty slow and bloated.

Rating: 8/10.Use it twice a month. Free

Imo instant messenger

Imo is a free online chat with support for Facebook, Skype, Gmail and many more. I discovered this app a few weeks ago and now I can be online on more than 7 different chat services and always available to speak to anyone. This is a feature I was missing in my phone but didn’t care too much until I actually had it in my hands and saw the main advantages of the “new mobile texting”. Some people love WhatsApp (Blackberry users mainly) but I find it annoying and heavy to use. Plus you need all your friends to have a Blackberry or a smartphone to contact them while with Imo you can speak to anyone online in their computer or smartphone. The notification system at Imo is pretty sweet and unobtrusive too.

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a day. Free

Very nice apps I’m glad someone invented

Non-essential apps that you could live without although having them available makes a difference in your life.

RunKeeper

Tracks your speed and location by GPS and provides you with statistics and maps. As RememberTheMilk made me a more organised person, RunKeeper makes me healthier. Since I go running with it every week I know how much I run, my average speed, time and route and I can compare it with previous runs to monitor my physical improvements in stamina and speed. You can also use it while driving and it is quite interesting to see the fastest routes around the city and how well/safe you drive.

Rating: 7/10.Use it once/twice a week. Free or £12.50/year

Dropbox

Synchronises a super folder between computers and smartphones so you can access your files anytime/anywhere without the need of USB sticks or emails. I found it to be the best way to move photos from my iPhone to the computer in big bunches as iPhoto from Apple is slow and tedious (I still haven’t figured out how). And Dropbox is completely free (use this link to get an extra free 250MB).

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a week. Free or £6.20/month

Shazam

Tells you which song is playing from any place. You put the phone close to the speaker and hold it there for 10 seconds, wait 5 seconds more and the app tells you the name of the song, the artist, etc. Shazam is not one of the most used apps in my phone but the one I sometimes appreciate most when there is a good track playing and I don’t know the name of it.

Rating: 7/10.Use it twice a month. Free or £3.49 (unlimited)

Millionaire Tycoon

Better game than Monopoly. I payed for Monopoly and I haven’t really played it yet since I’ve spent decent hours with this addicting game, much similar to Monopoly but with more features and a richer gameplay and smarter computer AI that allows for a more complex strategy and challenging game.

Rating: 7/10. Use it once a month. Free or £0.59 (more levels)

TuneIn Radio

Radio is something I started neglecting five years ago until last week I discovered TuneIn. Every morning I use to listen to music while having a shower and getting dressed to go to work but listening to someone telling the news is something much better.

Rating: 6/10.Use it every morning. Free or £0.59 (no ads)

Life saver apps

These are apps I rarely use but occasionally I need them.

Tube Exits

While travelling by underground it tells you which carriage to board to arrive right by your platform exit allowing you to save crowds of people and time. London’s Tube gets specially crowded at peak times and this app makes my travels much better and less annoying. Easy to use and with a great interface.

Rating: 7/10.Use it twice a week. £0.59

Amazon UK

Online price comparison. Anytime I go shopping for anything except groceries I check the prices online from the best and biggest online market. Yesterday I purchased directly from it for the first time and it was very simple and easy.

Rating: 8/10.Use it once a month. Free

Camera+

Full-featured digital camera. I had always been using the default’s iPhone camera and edited the photos with Photoshop/Fireworks later until I finally decided to purchase Camera+ as I saw a lot of people had it and after using it for a while I must say that it has been a great decision. The app is very powerful and can 80% of the times do what I would do in a computer in terms of edition and photoshopping and it actually saves me a lot of time.

Rating: 7/10.Use it 2 times a week. £0.59

Honorable mentions

• SimpleNote: note taking with sync functionality
• ShopShop: groceries list
• 0870: free phone alternatives
• AroundMe: shops and places around you
• Tube Deluxe: Tube status updated live
• Wikihood: sights around you
• Sleep Cycle: intelligent alarm
• WordPress: update your blog through the iPhone
• TeamViewer: see your computers’ screen
• TouchMouse: use your iPhone as a trackpad
• XE Currency: currency conversions
• Light: flashlight with the iPhone
• Pro HDR: nice photos on the fly
• 360 Panorama: awesome 360 degree photos
• Justin.tv: video streaming
• WhiteNoise: relaxing noise
• SongKick: latest concerts
• SoundCloud: great music radio

There are 30 apps mentioned and they are basically the ones I use. I have more than 130 apps installed right now in the iPhone from which I may use about 60.

What are your favourite apps you can’t live without?

The image was created in 20.2 seconds and quickly rubber stamping the margins with Adobe Fireworks. I wasn’t even willing to create it, just playing around and I’m pretty sure if you spend a bit more dedication you can accomplish really neat stereographic projections. Here’s a video on someone using it:

Photo is from the Brighton Pier, United Kingdom
(by Xavi Esteve, Creative Commons Attributive Share Alike).

No te gusta el multitasking que ha implementado Apple en su nueva versión del sistema operativo del iPhone? Es tu iPhone 3G muy lento con multitarea? Desactiva la multitarea siguiendo estos simples pasos sin necesidad de hacer jailbreak otra vez…

Mediante SSH navega al siguiente directorio “/System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app” y busca el archivo “N82AP.plist“. Ábrelo con el bloc de notas, busca la palabra “multitasking” y cambia el valor de <multitasking> de <true/> a <false/>. Reinicia el iPhone y ya está!

Gracias a Pony-Ony por el truco!

Desactivar multitasking en un iPhone sin jailbreak (actualización)

Stephan sugiere que también se puede desactivar la multitarea en un iPhone sin jailbreak instalando Total Commander (30 días de prueba gratis, Windows sólo). Descarga el plugin T-PoT y navega a través de tu dispositivo Apple hasta encontrar el archivo “N82AP.plist” que seguramente estará en “private/var/mobile/n82ap“. Abre el archivo y cambia el valor de multitasking de <true/> a <false/>. Guarda el archivo y reinicia tu iPhone.

Sleep Cycle is one of the coolest apps in the Apple Store. It allows you to monitor your sleep cicles and has an alarm that wakes you up at the best time you need to wake up hence you always wake up fresh and without that tired sensation of having slept a lot but not rested at all.
The app is only supported for the iPhone since the screen in the iPod Touch doesn’t dim and the device can become hot. I have been using it in my iPod Touch (it’s the 32GB version) for more than two weeks and it works great. I use a case to protect my iPod Touch and still doesn’t get hot at all during the night.

Instructions

To use Sleep Cycle in your iPod Touch follow these steps:

1. Update the iPod Touch to its latest OS version (4.0 or higher (currently available 4.1))
2. Go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock and select Never
   (Don’t worry, disabling auto-lock will not disable the password lock feature in your device)
3. Go to the iTunes Store and buy Sleep Cycle
4. Just to be sure, leave Sleep Cycle running during the day to see if the device becomes hot.
5. Before going to sleep, close all the other apps running in the background (specially Skype).
6. Do not put the iPod Touch under the pillow.
7. Put your device to charge and go to sleep. The app will wake you up in your lightest sleeping phase :)

The first two days the app will “learn” your sleeping patterns so results may not be very accurate. Although it works perfect for me (and many other people commenting about it on the Internet) I cannot guarantee that it will work for everyone so please download the app at your own risk. If it doesn’t work it’s just £1.

By the way, there are also more professional sleep phase alarm clocks which work much better, they’re about £100-200 but if having a good rest is important to you consider getting one.

Photo by orangeacid.

Are you one of those unitask fans? Is your iPhone 3G too slow with multitask? Disable Multitasking by following these simple steps, no need to jailbreak again…

SSH to the following dir “/System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app” search for the following file “N82AP.plist” and the open it with notepad and search for “multitasking” and change the <multitasking> value from <true/> to <false/>. Restart iPhone and you’re done.

Thanks to Pony-Ony for the trick!

Disable multitasking in a non-jailbreaked iPhone (update)

Stephan suggests you can also disable multitasking on a non-jailbreaked iPhone by installing Total Commander (30 days free trial, Windows only). Then download and install the T-PoT plugin (free, open source) to navigate through your Apple device and find the “N82AP.plist” file at “private/var/mobile/n82ap“. Open the file and change the multitasking value from <true/> to <false/>. Save the file and restart your iPhone.

To learn how you can jailbreak your iPhone step-by-step have a look at these ebooks on Jailbreaking your iPhone from scratch.

To switch to a background app (multitask) in your iPhone or iPod Touch iOS4 press the square button twice fast:

The four most recently used  apps will appear at the bottom of the screen. You can scroll your finger to right and left to view more opened apps and control the music player too.

Apps that are not multitasking compatible will still need to be started again. Some of the apps that I’ve got working on multitask right now are WordPress, LinkedIn or Dropbox. While Skype, Twitter, TeamViewer or MobileRSS haven’t been updated yet.

To close an app tap the app without releasing and wait 2 seconds, then click the red rounded button.

http://skyscarf.com/m

http://skyscarf.com/m

There’s a feedback forum were you can suggest new features or bugs.

Pasos para desactivar y evitar la sincronización automática

1. Desconecta el iPod de tu ordenador.
2. Presiona las teclas:
   1. Command + Option en Mac OSX
   2. Control + Shift en Windows (Shift es la tecla con una flechita hacia arriba, encima del Control)
3. Conecta tu iPod manteniendo presionadas las teclas.
   No las sueltes hasta que cargue el iTunes.
4. Una vez haya cargado el iTunes, podrás volver a reconfigurar el iPod como hiciste el primer día que lo conectaste. Sigue los pasos que te dice hasta encontrar:
   Gestionar los vídeos y la música manualmente
5. Márcalo como manual y sigue con los pasos.

¡Listo! Ahora ya no tienes que preocuparte de que la sincronización automática te desordene nada.

Por cierto, si iTunes te parece un engorro de programa o no quieres tenerlo instalado, prueba a usar una de las alternativas de iTunes: SharePod (mi favorito) o YamiPod (más funciones pero más lento). Además, puedes copiarte el programa directamente en el iPod para poder administrar tu música desde cualquier ordenador sin iTunes instalado.

Photo by philomglol

Although iPod devices have one of the best OS at the moment, there are some tweaks that could be improved IMHO.

Enable iPod buttons while connected and playing iTunes

If the iPod is connected to the computer, it would be great to skip songs, pause them or change volume through iPod buttons.

Play by rating through the iPod

Why I can rate my songs but can’t play them later by its rating? Alternative solution: Plug your device to a computer, turn it on, go to iTunes, create a new playlist, order iPod music by rating, add songs to the playlist you just created.

Play Count is not optimized in iPod

The Play Count of a song is only increased when hearing a song completely. That means that if you skip the last seconds of a song, it will not count as heard. It is really usual to skip the last part of a song. Last.fm has the scrobbling feature in which you can customize the percentage of song listened to count it as heard.

Play songs while connected to the computer

Ok, during disk mode it can’t be playing (well it could but lets ignore this). But it is frustrating that the iPod gets “blocked” while connected. Can’t do anything, neither access the configuration.
Alternative solution: To play songs while charging battery read this other post that talks about how to play songs while charging your battery.

Annoying waiting screen when ejecting iPod

When ejecting the iPod, a “OK to disconnect” message appears and doesn’t let you get rid of it. You just need to wait 5-10 seconds until it disappears.

Delete songs through the iPod

This may not be really necessary but it can be useful to keep a good music library tidy or if you don’t have access to iTunes easily.

iPod pauses when audio is unplugged but doesn’t play when audio is plugged again

It is nice to auto-pause, but an auto-play would be amazing.

Homebrew games for iPod inside original OS (no iPod Linux, Rockbox…)

Haven’t really investigated on this but I could only find text games.

iPod dependancy with iTunes

Thank God we have alternatives. Interested? Have a look at the iTunes alternatives.

Lock button is really damn unergonomic

Is it me? I mean, it is so difficult to lock the iPod…

Of course, we could ask for open source OS, use of XML or Linux compatibility, but we know that they won’t even think about it.