If you ask me, the iPhone’s default audio settings are a little flat for music, but they’re easy to adjust thanks to the iPhone’s built in equalizer. It’s not an equalizer in the sense of manual sliders, but there are tons of preset options and you’ll certainly find one for your audio needs, whether you’re listening to ebooks, rock, or classical, or anything in between.

Accessing the iTunes Equalizer:

* Tap the ‘Settings’ icon (usually located on your Home screen, unless you moved it)
* Scroll down to and tap on ‘iPod’
* Now tap on ‘EQ’
* Scroll through the list to find the settings right for you
* Select the preset equalizer settings you want to use by tapping on them
* Exit the EQ settings by clicking the home button or by manually navigating out of the Settings

Note: I highly recommend having a song playing while you are trying out different EQ settings, the changes are different and you will immediately hear how each sounds.

You may want to change your iPhone’s equalizer settings to fit different audio output, for instance I use ‘Small Speakers’ when I’m using Apple’s earbuds, but I’ll use a more specific genre theme with higher quality headphones or my iPhone/iPod dock. It makes a surprisingly big difference, so play around and find one that works for you.

This same protocol works for adjusting the equalizer on every other Apple portable product, from the iPhone, 3GS, to the iPods.

Did you know you can pause any application download or update on the iPhone and iPod Touch? This is great when you’re in a bandwidth bind or have low bars of reception.

* Pause the download/update by just tapping on the app’s icon while the download is going
* You’ll know the download is paused because the name will change to ‘Paused’ (see screenshot)
* Tap the icon again to resume the download or update

You learn something new everyday! I’ll bet this tip works for the iPad too, but since they aren’t in the wild yet we don’t know for sure.

[ screenshot and tip via MacObserver ]

You can use your iPhone as an external USB flash drive using this (currently) free software from myPodApps. Called iPhone Explorer, it’s a simple and lightweight program that lets you browse through your iPhone through it’s interface which works pretty well as a file manager. You can rename, create, delete, drag and drop, both files and folders on the iPhone using this app.

At the time of this writing, iPhone Explorer was a free download for Mac OS X and Windows, but based on our past experience covering software by the authoring company, myPod Apps, this could change at any time. So if you want to use your iPhone as a flash drive and want to do it for free, I suggest downloading this now or it might go the same pay model as PodToMac when we discussed getting music off your ipod.

iPhoneExplorer developer home
Download iPhoneExplorer now

“iTunes could not connect to this iPhone because an unknown error occurred (0xE8000065)”

Ahhh! That’s the message I got earlier when trying to connect my iPhone to my iMac, something I haven’t seen before. I searched around a bit online and found out that this is not a Mac OS X specific problem, many people running Windows XP and Windows 7 encounter the same error. While I couldn’t find a definitive answer as to what causes it, I have my own speculation: power issues.

Many of the complaints and descriptions regarding the error describe swapping around USB connections and ports to resolve the issue, and I think this helps to corroborate my suspicion with power management. With this is mind, here’s how I got the ‘unknown error’ to go away and finally connect my iMac to my iPhone again: I just let the iPhone charge more. The battery had been very low, and I have auto-sync enabled, so I imagine the iPhone just didn’t have an adequate charge to maintain a connection.

Now again, all of this is just pure speculation based on my experience and reading other peoples encounters with the same problem. So if you’re running into this “0xE8000065″ error with iTunes and your iPhone (also some people report problems on their iPod Touch…) try the following to troubleshoot:

* Change the USB port the iPhone is connected to the computer with
* Let the iPhone charge sufficiently before trying to access it through iTunes
* Turn the iPhone on and off

If it’s persistant, you could even try resetting the PMU/SMC controller on the Mac.

Anyway, if you encounter this error hopefully these tips work to resolve it for you as well, let me know!

While everyone continues to wait for an official Hulu app for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad/whatever, you can beat them to the punch and get Hulu content on your iPhone now for free, using Snow Leopard!

This is a pretty crafty approach and it requires several things:
* Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard installed
* Latest version of QuickTime Player (with Screen Recording support)
* Hulu Desktop client for Mac (for easy full-screen mode)
* The audio recording utility called SoundFlower (so you can record system audio while a screencast is going on)

In case you hadn’t guessed it yet, after you’ve met the above installation requirements, you basically just set your audio output device to SoundFlower, launch the Hulu app and get your show queued up, then from within QuickTime Player you start a new screen recording and start playing the Hulu show… afterwards simply go through the saved screencast and trim out the desktop stuff you don’t want, and then save the file as iPhone format… crafty huh?

You can see the full walkthrough at SampleTheWeb: How to use Snow Leopard to Record Hulu Content on your iPhone [ screenshot borrowed from SampleTheWeb ]

Have an iPhone? Like to use gloves to keep your hands warm in the winter? Annoyed that you have to take your gloves off to use the iPhone? Keep those gloves on! Korean iPhone users are driving a 40% increase in snack sausage sales because they’ve figured out the little meat sticks can be used as an iPhone stylus in cold weather… no really.

This is the most ridiculous and amusing thing I’ve seen all day.

[ Google Translate: ITNews via ClusterFlock.org ]

Did you know that you can put your iPhone inside a plastic bag and still use the touchscreen? Yes, that’s right, stick your iPhone in an airtight ziplock bag, and you’ll have an instant and amazingly cheap waterproof case for your iPhone.

The context of this tip is actually in regards to cooking, First & 20 suggests placing your iPhone inside a ziplock bag so you can keep using it in the kitchen with dirty hands, not a bad idea at all, but the uses for this extend far beyond the kitchen… imagine the possibilities with a waterproof iPhone! Paint your house without painting your iPhone! Browse the web from the bath! Update Facebook in the pouring rain! Text your friends from the depths of the seas! Well, maybe not that extreme, but you get the point. This is a rather funny tip, but it’s actually really useful and I’ve already found myself using it a few times around the house. Obviously you should make sure the seal on the ziplock bag is very strong, or else your iPhone will drown.

[ via First & 20 ]

Note: this is not necessary for standard iPhone users, only Jailbroken iPhones.

Changing the iPhone’s root password is a good idea if you have Jailbroken your iPhone, it will prevent unauthorized users and applications from doing things you certainly don’t want them to do since the password is universal on all Jailbroken phones (unless it’s changed by the user). So with that in mind, here’s how to change the root password on your Jailbroken iPhone:

* First you have to have the app called MobileTerminal, it’s available free at the Cydia app store
* Launch MobileTerminal and at the prompt type the following: passwd
* When asked for the old password, type: alpine
* You’ll then be prompted for a new password, so type your new password, it will ask for a confirmation so type it again
* That’s it! The root password on your Jailbroken iPhone is changed and you’ll be sent back to the command prompt.

Note: you will want to change the password for the ‘root’ user as well as the default mobile user, doing this is easy:
* Login to the root account by typing: login root
* Enter this as the password: alpine
* Now type passwd and follow the same instructions as above

[ via JustAnotheriPhoneBlog ]

This is a very cool feature I had no idea existed but accidentally stumbled across while on a recent flight. If you have an iPhone, you probably know that the earbuds included with it have a button to adjust volume and what not, well guess what, you can control the volume level in iTunes and QuickTime with the iPhone Earbud buttons as well! This works at least on the Unibody MacBook Pro’s, but I’m not sure if it works on the Unibody MacBook. Just plug in the iPhone earbuds to your Mac and launch QuickTime or iTunes to test it out yourself.

It’s also worth mentioning that the iPhone earbuds microphone works fine with Mac OS X too, and it makes a significantly better microphone than the one that is built in. This is particularly handy for VOIP calls through iChat, Google Voice, and Skype.

Tye Campbell wrote to us with the following question: “Do you guys know how to take apart an iPhone? Specifically the 3G model, I can’t find any way to get to the display and I’d like to do my own screen replacement since mine is cracked but I have another one available to me from a water-damaged iPhone. I’m pretty patient and don’t mind learning, but I don’t even know where to begin, any tips or starting points?”

Good question! I had to take apart an iPhone 3GS recently to replace the back case, I used the guides offered by iFixIt, they are comprehensive and really walk you through accessing various parts of the iPhone including the display. The key is to have the right tools at your disposal before disassembly, otherwise you can end up in a really frustrating situation. Also be sure to track each individual iPhone part and where it comes from inside the device so that when you reassemble it you won’t have any extra pieces laying around! These guides will help you with selecting the right tools and staying organized during the iPhone repair, follow it carefully and you should have no problems. If you’re wondering how to take apart an iPhone, I would go this route:

iFixIt: iPhone 3G Guide

iFixIt: iPhone 3GS Guide

iFixIt: iPhone 1st Gen Guide