The iPhone Mom

Here’s another great “How To” from Matt Tong over at cnet TV. He’s a great resource and is always such a snappy dresser in his videos.  I’ve been able to share apps with my husband before but the way we did it was messy. Matt’s version is much cleaner and involves dragging and dropping, emailing and authorizing your friend or loved one to use the app on their computer. Matt says it works the same with music, videos, etc. Can’t wait to try this one out again. Click here to watch his excellent explanation on how to share apps with multiple users.

It seems like both Apple and iTunes get a lot of bad press for some of their policies so I thought I’d share a positive experience that I had with iTunes today.

This past weekend my husband revamped my computer and installed a new version of Windows for me – goodbye Vista!! He asked me several times if I’d backed up everything that I needed to keep. I went through my hard drive and thought that I’d gotten everything. I remembered to back up my apps but wouldn’t you know it I forgot to make a copy of my iTunes library. WHOOPS. Since the husband had turned my computer into a “new machine” I was now dealing with a brand new iTunes library. This caused trauma when I tried to sync up my phone and my daughters’ iPod Nanos because where there once was music and videos there was now nothing. Luckily the majority of our music was stored on our home server but there were plenty of videos that I’d purchased through iTunes that were nowhere to be found. I’ll admit that I panicked when I thought of having to explain to my son why there was no Phineas and Ferb next time we got stuck in a waiting room. So I did what I usually do in a panic – I googled. I stumbled upon blog posts explaining how to redownload purchases from iTunes, even though their policy states that music and video can only be downloaded once. I gave it a try last night and had the best customer service experience. I had an email within twelve hours telling me that Apple would let me redownload my purchase history. So as we speak I’ve got a disgusting amount of items downloading in iTunes right now.

Here’s how I did it. Go to the support site for iTunes, here’s the link. Now you’ll want to click on the description of what you need help with – I clicked on “video purchases”, then “lost purchases”. At this point an “Email” button appeared on the screen so I clicked on that and was taken to a form to fill out. You’ll need to provide your iTunes account information as well as the names of the items you’re missing. I also included a description of why I was asking for help. I admitted it was my fault that the items weren’t backed up but asked if there was anyway Apple could help me out. Most importantly (at least to a mom) I was polite in my request. Well, it worked and I’ve learned a lesson to always make a copy of your iTunes library.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll have the same experience but I wanted to let people know that Apple’s not heartless. They do take pity on those who let their husbands near their PCs without backup.

Here’s a story about an app from AppsFire that would let you email out links to your favorite apps – from your iPhone. It also sounds like they’ve implemented ways to research apps as well. Best of all, it’s going to be free.

Share apps by mobile e-mail

This story from the iPhone Download Blog cam through on my Twitter feed. It was news to me that you could get a refund for an iPhone app. After reading the story I read the comments and found it interesting how the refund policy affects the app developers. If the comments are an accurate depiction of how it works and a developer was willing to offer a refund themselves, I think I’d rather go through them so they could keep that 30%.

How to Get an iPhone App Refunded

Here’s a neat trick for those of you with a brand spankin’ new iPhone 3GS. If you’re tired of staring at the battery icon you can change your settings to show you the percentage of battery life you have left. Pretty Slick.

Brian Tong shows you the trick here!

I am loving the new search feature in the iPhone OS 3.0. I found an online article that explains in simple terms how to use the search.  I’m a BIG fan of simple terms when it comes to techy stuff.  Howcast is not usually my favorite place to stop but I thought they did a decent job explaining this feature.

Using Search in iPhone OS 3.0

I updated my iPhone to the new 3.0 OS and have been playing around with all the new features. I’d heard that the cut, copy and paste feature was a big deal but hadn’t been able to get a knack for how to use it. I could have asked my husband but sometimes that results in more technical information than I can handle. So I turned to my trusty friend Google and found this video that walks you through how to do it. It made the lightbulbs go off for me and hopefully if copy and paste has you stumped it’ll do the same for you.

How to Cut, Copy & Paste with iPhone 3.0

Another article with ideas for fixing trouble from the OS 3.0 update. Thank you cnet.com.

Upgrade Problems with OS 3.0

I haven’t noticed any trouble with my iPhone since installing the new OS 3.0 but my husband has. He’s mentioned a few times that his battery was draining faster than usual. He forwarded this link to me tonight and I gave it a try as a preventative measure. I just followed the steps outlined in this article and it seemed to work fine. The only thing I noticed was that after my iPhone had been reset my icons were all in different places. Guess what I’ll be rearranging during the kids’ swim lessons tomorrow…

Fix iPhone OS 3.0 Battery Charging Problems

*Update- as I’ve been using my phone today I’m discovering more things that “reset” that I’ve now got to change back. Voicemail greeting, sound settings for texts, etc. So be prepared to do some updating if you go ahead and try out the above fix.

There are times when I’m acutely aware that my control over my little kingdom is merely an illusion. So when something comes along that gives me true power over my little people I get a little excited. And I’m absolutely excited about the new restrictions feature in the iPhone OS 3. The good people at Apple have given moms the power to shut down certain content on their iPhones and it feels so good!

To play around with the restrictions tap your “Settings” button and then tap “General”. Now tap “Restrictions”, it should be towards the bottom of your screen. The first time you visit this section you’ll be asked to enter and re-enter a passcode. You’ll need to enter the passcode every time you monkey around with the restrictions. Now for the power. You, my fellow moms, can allow (or not allow) Safari, You Tube, iTunes, the App Store, the camera or the location feature on your iPhone. Just slide the button next to each of these from on to off and they will literally disappear from your iPhone screens. I got rid of You Tube and iTunes. I know I’ll hear from my kids when they try to watch the silly video of the cat fighting with the copy machine but such is life.

Farther down on the screen you can set what type of content you allow. I tapped “Music & Podcasts” and turned off the explicit ones. They will not show up on my phone. You can set ratings for movies, TV shows and apps. Once you’ve set a rating anything that’s rated higher than that won’t show up on your iPhone. No worries though, you don’t have to download all your movies again. Just change the rating and they’ll be right back where they were before. A note- videos that you’ve converted yourself aren’t subject to the ratings restrictions. It appears to only work on content you’ve downloaded from iTunes.

No illusion of power here, iPhone moms have got it now.