iPhone Tips - Taking Screen Captures

I really like this feature because it works with any app, website, picture, etc. you happen to be viewing on your iPhone at the time.

Before we start: The Home button is the round button on the bottom of your iPhone. The Sleep/Wake switch is found on the top right edge of your phone. It is the same switch you press to turn your phone on and off.

To do a screen capture on your iPhone:

1. View the screen you want to capture.
2. Press the Home button and the Sleep/Wake switch simultaneously (this takes some dexterity). The screen flashes white briefly.
3. Go to your Camera Roll to view the picture. From there, you can:

• Email the photo
• Send via MMS (text message)
• Assign to a Contact
• Use as your wallpaper

One way I use this feature is to take captures of iPhone apps to use in blog postings or presentations at work. Also, if I don’t already have a picture of one of my friends, I use this feature to take a capture of their profile picture on Facebook and then add it to their Contact info on my phone. Then when they call me, their picture displays on my phone's screen. One cool thing is that once you add the picture to the Contact, you can then delete the pic from your Camera Roll to free up storage space.

iPhone App - Siri Assistant

Here is another search app for the iPhone 3GS. Siri Assistant uses voice recognition and interpretation to help you find local businesses, set reminders, and even check the weather.

After downloading the fee App, you set up an account by entering your name and e-mail address. Then you have the option to tap your request using pre-determined categories, type out your request, or speak your request into your phone’s microphone. Siri focuses on the key words in your search to find businesses that match your request. I searched using all three methods and they all worked very well. I was very impressed by the accuracy of the voice recognition feature.

Siri is integrated with other web information services. So if, for example, you search for a movie, Siri allows you to play trailers, see reviews, map it, and purchase tickets. If you search for a particular type of restaurant in a certain zip code, Siri provides restaurant details, map, reviews, and phone number.

Cost: Free

iPhone App: Shazam

This app is truly a must-have for any music lover. It’s definitely one of my favorite apps. If you hear a song you like on the radio, in a commercial, in a restaurant - anywhere the music is loud enough for your iPhone microphone to pick it up - just point your iPhone mic towards the music and press Tag Now. Shazam “listens” to a few seconds of the song, then tries to identify the song for you.

If Shazam finds the song, it brings up a screen with the name of the song, the artist, the name of the album it's on, the artist's music label, the date and your location when you tagged the item. From there you can perform a number of functions such as:

• Play a sample of the song.
• Go to iTunes where you can buy and download the song.
• Post info about the song you just tagged to your Twitter and/or Facebook pages.
• Send a Postcard (e-card) to your friends via e-mail to share info about the tagged song so they can listen to it on iTunes and buy it.
• Read a biography of the artist.
• View a discography of the artist's work.
• View the video for the song on YouTube, if one exists. (This doesn't always work- sometimes some random video comes up, or a video that's not the “official” one.)

Cost: Free. For $4.99, you can get Shazam Encore or Shazam Red, which offer even more features.

CNN's Apps of the week

The Setting: Speaking of digital books, there are many apps available for you to read books on your smart phone.

These apps could be really helpful to you if you're stuck somewhere for a long time, traveling, sitting a the DMV, etc. Some of the available apps include Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's reader app, Mobipocket, and Stanza.

The good news is that many of the apps are free. The potential bad news is that it could be tiring on the hands to have to continually "turn" the page. Also, some people may not be able to stomach reading off of such a small screen, although some readers will allow you to change text size.

More info about theses apps is available at CNN's Apps of the week page.

Calling all Twitter users

The Setting: Phone calling is coming to Twitter.

Using a third-party tool from Jajah, Twitter users will be able to make phone calls to each other through their twitter accounts. The person receiving the call must be a followerr of the person making the call and both must have Jajah accounts.

The service is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones. During the beta period, the calls will be limited to two minutes which, according to Jajah, will be the "verbal equivalent of a tweet."

Why not just make a phone call? One of the features of this tool will allegedly be the ability to make the voice calls while keeping your cell phone number private from the people you chat with on Twitter. Hmm... we'll see.

Read the article about phone calling coming to Twitter here.