Stash Bits: Hacking Up The Biggest Selling Smartphone, Unlocking It For 3G

Apple may have bagged 10 million iPhone sales this year but you don’t care about sales figures (unless your inner geek needs some justification for the popularity of the device) but what you’re more interested in is what you can’t do with it. Well step on down because hacking up the iPhone just got better and more intriguing. Fortunately you don’t need to drag your unwilling little bundle of glass and plastic into the tool shed to make it more useful.

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Tip Stash: Set iTunes Grid Artwork

A new browsing mode has been added to iTunes 8 allowing for a more visual experience. Sorting can be applied that narrows down your selection to Artists, Albums, Genres and Composers. However, a default picture is automatically generated for what’s bundled in that category. Luckily, you can switch out the preselected grid artwork.

The only downside is you can’t choose a new picture but at least you can make your music look a bit better visually. Drag your mouse around until you find an album cover you like then hover your mouse and right click. Under the pop up menu select “Set Default Grid Artwork”. Alternatively you can view all album covers, right click, then select the same thing and achieve a new cover when in album, genre or composer view.

iPhone Firmware 2.2 Packing Hidden Features

New firmware updates for the iPhone are inevitable but before they’re pushed out to the general public, they don Beta status allowing developers ample time to tweak and modify their Apps while providing bug fixes to Apple. Firmware 2.1 came out recently with Apple focusing more on stability and bug fixes, but this time around, a few extra goodies are being baked into Firmware 2.2; ‘Emojicons’ and Google Street View support for the bundled maps application.

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Tip Stash: Full Screen Web Apps

Previous iPhone Firmware updates have brought many improvements to Mobile Safari. While Web Apps were the pinnacle use of the browser, attention shifted to native third party Apps. But the latest update to the iPhone streamlines functionality of Web Apps by bringing full screen support.

Clancy, an Apple Insider reader first discovered the useful feature after updating to Firmware 2.1, but full screen support is only available to Apps that can utilize the feature. A demo App has been created to demonstrate the functionality and forgoes the URL and browser button bars. Hit up this link for the demo App then add it to the Home Screen by clicking the “+” button and select “Add To Home Screen.” It’ll look like a native third party App but function slower as it must be transmitted from a server and isn’t installed locally on the phone.

Via: Apple Insider

This Week In Apple Stash: Uninteresting First Post

When it comes to the weekends, no one really likes them for keeping tabs on tech news. Sure there is the whole argument “The Internet never sleeps so why should your Blog?” but the tradeoff is another work week of Blogging related injuries and reading goodies. To hold over your odd appetites for words here’s another part of your balanced diet, a weekly round up.

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Reports Of Steve Job’s Heart Attack Are Greatly Exaggerated

Ever since the watching game began on Stevie J’s health after his skinny frame took place on stage during the June WWDC conference, rumors have been fluttering around his supposed death or at least near ready to keel over status. iReport, a community driven content network took that to a new level this morning by propagating a false story on Steve Jobs suffering a heart attack which was picked up by major news outlets such as CNN. Apple has publicly denied Steve Jobs dropping dead and the implications are being taken seriously by the SEC as an attempt at stock manipulation.

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Stash Bits: App Store Changes, Updates To Perian & Mobile Safari

While Apple is planning its own updates for the App Store and Safari for the iPhone is receiving a minor facelift, the Perian team has been hard at work bringing the popular Mac codec pack to version 1.1.1. Apple on the other hand is planning some cosmetic updates to the App Store on iTunes and the iPhone as well as streamlining the Mobile Safari interface.

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Repost: iChat Screen Names For 40 Apple Stores

The Apple Store is generally a very friendly and social place when it comes to just about anything. But why not take that experience of meeting some cool and hip new person home? Well, now you can using the power of iChat, just don’t be bummed when no one wants to be your friend outside of your buddy list.

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Apple Not So Pushy On Push Notification

Apple may have announced Push Notification to launch this month for the iPhone way back when in June and subsequently pull it from recent development seed, but its scheduled debut is looking to be a little late as September comes to a close.

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‘The Brick’ Makes A Thud In The Apple Rumor Mill

Rumors are never absent from a company’s growth and that goes for Apple too. Sure we’ve seen the crazy, unique and somewhat plausible but a new whisper of something new is making waves or in this case a massive hole in your window. Bloggers all around are drumming up theories on “The Brick” and unfortunately, have come up empty handed.

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