Finding parking in NYC requires loads of patience and savvy particularity because parking signs are notoriously difficult to decipher.  The people at PrimoSpot.com have created a site rich with tools to help you land a spot that meets your location, time, and price needs.  Their map clues the user into street parking signs, meter availability, parking garages, street-side images,  places to avoid, premium spots and more.  You can use their site to strategize your parking plan or utilize their smartphone app in the moment as you approach your destination.

This is an indispensable tool for drivers in the NY Metropolis.  Anyone whose experienced the nightmare of having their car towed, which happens all too fast in this city, knows to be extra extra cautious about parking.  PrimoSpot takes some of the pressure off.

image from primospot.com

The phone frenzy is palpable once again.  Out with the old, in with the new.  Have you upgraded your OS yet, that is if you didn’t get the new phone?  Download it here. You might as well familiarize yourself with all the perks, tricks, and added functionality now available with iOS4.  It’s bound to make your iDevice more fun.

New iOS4 shortcuts, features, and settings you need to know for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

image from apple.com

Getting back to the heart of the matter: what is bad about the Droid and what is bad about the iPhone. You may be asking yourself why just the bad stuff? I think if you want fanboys to fawn over either device you have a lot of sites extolling their values all over the internet. So lets start.

iPhone: No removable battery Battery life Closed source architecture No tethering * Single carrier Lack of Google Voice

Now let me explain these a bit. The battery life and no removable battery go hand in hand. The battery life takes a huge hit mostly because the phone is constantly trying to find towers and set itself to the proper reception. I alleviated my problems with a mophie juice pack, but I am also a phone abuser. I do not like the fact that the iPhone’s graphical OS is not open source. While tethering is something that the iPhone actually does and AT&T is keeping it from us, I think that Apple should strong arm AT&T a bit more over this one, which runs into the single carrier issue. If they had more carriers perhaps a lot of these issues would be alleviated. The last complaint is just a small problem that opened a very large wound. I like Google Voice, should I have to jailbreak my phone to get it? No, did I? Yes.

Now on to the Droid.

Droid: Keyboard keys are way too close No search in emails Zooming into a web pages feels laggy The home screen has only 3 screens for Apps The home screen feels laggy when sliding The volume up/down rocker Visual voicemail Screen accuracy App quality

Let me expound on the Droid flaws. I loved my 8700c Blackberry, the keys were very comfortable. I wish all keyboards were like that, I have however learned to love virtual keyboards. Searching in emails, I didn’t realize how important this was until I needed it. The iPhone has it, the Droid needs it! I really don’t like the web browser on the Droid. When zoomed in it seems off in terms of how it pans left/right/up/down. The same goes for the home screen, it is sluggish panning left to right and vice versa. Now for the volume key, I don’t like having ringtones going off and my phone is always set to vibrate. However, it can easily be taken off of vibrate and turned on just by putting it in my pocket. There really needs to be a lock button for the ringer. Visual Voicemail is an App that Verizon has made on the Droid. Listening to a voicemail comes through the speaker, this is plain stupid. The accuracy of where your finger is on the screen can also use some improvement, it is not bad, but it is no iPhone. Which brings me to the last complaint. There are Apps out on the Droid that crash and are very broken, it’s a minefield.

I have to say, while the Droid has some growing up to do, I do really like it. Is it a iPhone killer? No, but I don’t mind using it as a replacement.

The Apple site has a great reference for keeping the lithium-based batteries running your iPhone and iPod devices in tip top shape.  I’ll give you the Cliff Notes here for best practices:

#1.  Temperature
Keep your device cool – don’t leave it in a hot car, sunny window, or in its case when charging.

#2.  Use the Lock button
If you lock your device before you put it in your pocket or handbag, it won’t accidentally wake up and run.

#3.  Use your device until the charge runs down
Generally speaking, it is a good practice to let your device run through complete charge cycles.  This means, when your device is fully charged let it run until the charge is almost totally used up before recharging again.  Apple recommends this at least once a month.

For those of you interested in the fine print, you can also optimize settings on your devices to use resources conservatively.  Here is a quick list of settings you can alter that prolong  battery charges:

for the  iPhone

• Minimize use of location services
• Turn off push notifications
• Fetch new data less frequently
• Turn off push mail
• Auto-check fewer email accounts
• Minimize use of third-party applications
• Turn off Wi-Fi
• Turn off Bluetooth
• Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas
• Adjust brightness
• Turn off EQ
• Turn off 3G

for your iPod Family device

• Turn off Wi-Fi
• Only use the backlight when necessary
• Turn EQ off if you don’t use it
• Minimize use of third-party applications
• Fetch new data less frequently
• Turn off push mail

For details and more explanation, please see Apple’s site for the iPhone batteries or iPod Family batteries.

image from apple.com

Become an iPhone  super-user with these 20+ handy, but not necessarily well known tips.    They may enhance your user experience or make you an even more savvy pro.

I complied these tricks from iSmashphone.com.  A big thanks to them for spelling these out.  I’m sure at least a few will be invaluable tools for beginners and experts.

1. Scroll to Top of Page

In any application, Safari included, you can automatically scroll to the top of the page by tapping on the “top bar”, which has the time, service bars, and battery. In Safari, this not only brings you to the top of the page, but also brings up the URL bar.

2.  Domain Resolution

When typing a URL in Safari, you don’t have to type the “www” or the “.com”.For instance, for www.cnn.com just type “cnn” in the URL box. Note: Your search engine must be set to Google, not Yahoo.

3.   Domain Suffix (On firmware 2.0 only)

Hold down the “.com” key for “.net, .edu, .org” keys. Note: Slide your finger from .com to .net/.edu/.org, rather than lifting and pressing.

4.   Press and Hold for Alternate Characters

Hold a letter for a popup of various versions of the character (i.e. to type España with the “ñ” simply hold “n” and simply slide/release to the appropriate character).

5.   Click and Hold URL’s

In Safari, hold a link to see the URL and site name.

6.   Soft Reset

Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep button to restart your iPhone. A white light will flash, the screen will shut off and then turn back on. Keep holding until the screen turns back on.

7.   Take a Screenshot

To take a screenshot, hold the home button and click the sleep button. The screen will flash white and the screenshot will be stored in your camera roll.

8.   Set Parental Controls

You can enable certain restrictions or parental controls on your iPhone. You can block explicit lyrics, Safari, YouTube, iTunes, or the App Store. Just go to Settings, General, Restrictions.

9.   Save any image from Safari

To save any image from the web to your camera roll, simply press and hold the image. A menu will appear asking “Save Image” or “Cancel”. Once the image is in your camera roll, you can set it as your wallpaper.

10.  Fast Forward/Rewind Music and Video

Press and hold the skip forward/back arrows to fast forward or rewind rather than skip tracks. Also, press on the album art to manually FF/rewind.

11.   Delete Emails

You can do both “bulk deletes” and “individual deletes” when browsing email. To do a bulk delete, simply click Edit, check off the desired emails, and then choose delete or move. To delete a single email, simply “cross it out” by swiping your finger across the email, then press delete.

12.   Double tap space bar for a period

When typing on your iPhone, double tapping the space bar at the end of a sentence automatically enters a period followed by a space. No need to press “123″ to get to the numbers and symbols page where the period typically resides. I use this trick daily and it heavily increases my typing speed (especially when texting).

13.  Tap the bottom corner to navigate home screens

When on your home screen, try tapping the bottom right/left corner to switch between pages instead of swiping your finger across the screen.

14.   Take out your SIM card during backup and sync

We’ve all experienced it. You’re backing up and syncing your iPhone, and the hour long back up is nearly complete. Then all of a sudden you get a phone call, and the whole back up/sync is null and void.

To avoid this happening, simply start the backup/sync, then pull out your SIM card. Do not worry, this does not damage your phone at all. Put it back in once everything is complete. This way, your backup won’t get interrupted.

This tip is also useful if you need to make a phone call while your iPhone is backing up/syncing. Since unlocking your phone cancels the process, just take out your SIM card, pop it in your old cell phone, and call away.

15.   Move “dock” icons

You’d be surprised how often this tip is overlooked. The 4 icons located on the grey bar at the bottom of your iPhone – Phone, Mail, iPod, Safari – are movable, just like the rest of the icons. Just press and hold the icons, then drag them while they are shaking. Press the home button when you’re done. You can put any 4 icons on your dock.

16.   Automatically capitalize and add apostrophes

The iPhone automatically capitalizes certain words (“I” when you type “i”). It also automatically adds apostrophes (“I’m” when you type “Im”).

17.   Double tap a column on Safari to fit-to-page

When browsing the Internet on your iPhone’s Safari browser, double tap any column, word, or picture to fit it’s width to your iPhone’s screen. This is extremely useful for reading blogs.

The first screenshot is the page when it firsts load. The second screenshot is the page once the main text was double tapped.

18.   Manually select the icon image for a bookmarked webpage

This one’s a little more confusing. When you are browsing a website on your iPhone’s Safari browser and want to add its icon to your home screen, press the plus sign and select “Add to Home Screen”.

The image in the icon, however, is a screenshot of the page you were on. So if you want the icon to look a specific way, zoom in on a particular item on the page. Whether you want the website’s logo, or some picture on the page, simply zoom in on that part of the page before you press “Add to Home Screen”.

Note:  This doesn’t work with all websites. Popular sites like Google have special icons for the iPhone’s home screen.

• Go to your website of choice.
• Zoom in on your favorite part.
• Press the + sign and choose Add to Home Screen.
• Name the bookmark appropriately (Digg – Apple).

Now that exact part of the webpage is displayed in your icon.

19.   Your iPhone’s headphones have a multi-function button!

You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that the iPhone’s native headphones have a button on the microphone.
Just squeeze the microphone together, and the button gets pressed.

The buttons functions:

In call…

• Press once to answer a call
• Press twice to send the call to voicemail
• Press once to hang up a call

In call while second call coming in…

• click once to hold current call and switch to new call
• hold for 2 secs and release to ignore new call

Out of call…

• Press once to activate iPod and play song
• Press once to pause song
• Press twice to skip to next song

20.  Double Tap Home Button Tricks

Double tapping the home button has several useful functions:

• There is a common misconception that you must press the “Sleep/Wake” button to bring your iPhone out of sleep mode. You can press either your home button or your sleep/wake button to wake your sleeping iPhone and bring up the “Slide to unlock” screen.

• You can assign several functions to “double-clicking” your Home button.  Simply go to Settings -> General -> Home Button.  From the menu, you can choose whether double clicking your iPhone takes you to your “Favorite” contacts, or brings up iPod controls. While phone favorites is convenient, setting it to iPod mode allows you to start music no matter what else you’re doing.  In other words, it brings up iPod controls (play, pause, skip, volume) over whatever other application you are running (Safari included).  Setting iPod Controls to “On” means that if you already have music playing, double clicking the Home button will bring up iPod controls even if you have the Home Button set to “phone favorites”.

• Double clicking the home button from the “Slide to unlock” screen will always bring up iPod controls, right over the “Slide to unlock” screen. You can control your iPod without even unlocking your phone!

image from apple.com

iPhone Explorer is a free application that enables you to copy files to and from your iPhone or iPod Touch.  You can transfer photos, music and other media to right your computer.  You can also use it as a flash drive transporting files or using it as a storage device.

Here is what the makers say:

If you did not hear, apple released the MobileMe iDisk App, of course you will need a mobile me account. OSX users really should have one, let me list the benefits:

- get an new email address ( you choose what it is ) belonging to the .me domain
- can set up galleries through iphoto and upload your pictures to it for anyone to see.
- get a website that you can manipulate with iWeb.
- get 20 GB of space to share between your website/pictures/email or whatever else you want
- get access to a backup application tht will backup whatever files you want to the iDisk ( after it is set up)
If you have an iPhone you can track it if it is ever lost

And the best part? Its all in sync and push enabled (Email , contacts, calendar)

When you have MobileMe installed on OSX or Windows, goto your settings/control panel and make sure you are logged in and iDisk is set up. You should see it under devices in finder or under my computer in Windows.
So either use Itunes to search for the MobileMe IDisk app or use your iPhone/iTouch device to install the device (app store).
Its a great tool to keep your files accessible to you wherever you go.

This is where 3rd party vendors come in. While there is a plethora of battery products out there for the iphone, the best I have found is Mophie. I ordered the Juice pack air and I love it. Yes, it makes the phone heavier, but it doubles the battery life of the phone. On a busy day I need it. There have been a a few heavy use days when i actually had to recharge both phone and battery. Which bring me to my next topic.

The battery pack doubles as a protective case, it also uses the new European charging standard for phone plugs (micro usb)*.  The case acts as a passthrough and you can sync your phone to Itunes with no problem. It also has a small recessed switch at the bottom. The Iphone actually uses more power when it charges, so leaving it on all the time would drain the battery. When it is fully charged , the battery pack will start vibrating alerting you to shut it off.

I really love my phone, and I love my battery pack. I would recommend it to anyone. For 70$ , it’s a steal.

* American phones will get no such love, standards? Who needs them. Maybe when we finally switch to the metric system.

-Raz