11 power tips to really use your iPhone

Well, Apple and AT&T continue to torment me by not allowing me to purchase an iPhone 4s. Before my recent 2 week river trip, there were plenty of iPhones to be found, but I was not eligible to upgrade. And now I'm eligible, but I can't find one to buy. I've been in Arizona, Nevada, California, Tennessee and Colorado in the last 20 days and the whole country seems to be bone dry.

To make things more fun, seemingly every single person I know has an iPhone 4s. And apparently I'm known as a bit of an expert in the world of iPhones. My friends are all using Siri to come out of the woodwork ("Siri, help me come out of the woodwork.") and tell me about their newly acquired phone and ask how to take advantage of all the awesome things the iPhone 4s can do.

Allow me to oblige ... here's how to really use your iPhone - specifically an iPhone 4s (pay no attention to the fact that I don't have one).

1. Double click the home button when the phone is locked.

 

You can get all kinds of stuff done without even unlocking your phone.  I use the iTunes controls all the time.  And I'm finally starting to remember that the lock screen is the quickest way to get to the camera.  And with your camera so easily located here, you don't really need to have it taking up valuable space on your home screen.

2.  Double click the home button when the phone is unlocked.

Multi-task among your open apps by double clicking and quickly jump between all your open apps.  Scroll right to see apps in sets of 4.

3.  Scroll right left after double clicking the home button.

Don't want your phone to accidentally go into horizontal mode?  Lock the screen orientation.  And adjust your tunes while staying within the program you're using.

4. Scroll one more time to adjust the volume while keeping your current app up and running.

5.  Do yourself a favor and set up some shortcuts.

This is a crazy time saver for entering emails, phone numbers and more.  All I type now is lj3 and my long email address is auto-typed.  Here's a good article with some great examples.

6.  For goodness sake, use the spotlight search, people!

I think I once saw a tweet indicating that this tool is useless.  I almost committed harikiri right then in disgust.  Just click home when already on your first page (or slide left from your home screen) and start typing to find people, apps, songs, emails ... everything.

• No need to remember what folder you put that app in, just search for it.
• Search for a friend's name, click it.  Then choose "Send Message" to quickly send them a text (as opposed to scrolling through to find the most recent message you sent them from the Messages app).
• Fire off a song in a few keystrokes.
• Search for an old email (one that you maybe even archived) and respond immediately.
• Good gravy who could possibly think this isn't useful!?!?

7.  And while we're here, adjust your Spotlight Search settings.

Turn certain search items on/off that you aren't interested in and adjust the order of which items you want to appear first.

8.  We all know about the Notification Center as it was highly touted as one of iOS5's best new features.  REALLY use it by going into General -> Notifications and adjusting your settings.

Turn items on and off.  Move items up and down and ...

9.  Adjust your individual notifications per app.

Adjust each app ...

• Turn off apps you don't care about.
• Determine how many unread notifications should show up at a time.
• Do you want the notification to appear in the new banner area, as a pop-up alert or only show up when you check notifications?  I've set almost all mine to "Banner" and a few to "None."  The days of clicking through all your pop up messages are over.

10.  I know everyone doesn't like the native iPhone weather app, but iOS5 brought on some great improvements.

For one, you can pull down on the current day and see an hourly.  And the left-most weather page is now "local weather" by default.

11.  If you don't do anything on this list, please at least do this.  Set up "Find My iPhone."  For serious.  For reals.  Really.

If I see one more Facebook post about how you lost your iPhone, I'm going to lose it.  

1. Sign up for iCloud.  It's 100% free.
2. Then go to Settings -> iCloud and hit the button above.

Oh and if someone wants to give me their iPhone 4s, that'd be sweet ... cuz I'm still working with my iPhone 4 P.O.S.  (I feel dirty ... and wrong.)

F You, Footloose Remake

Look.  I was already livid with the Footloose remake because ... it's a Footloose remake.  A film that spawned this scene (that Zach and I have repeatedly re-enacted on the streets of Aspen by the way):

Which in turn spawned this spoof:

... is clearly without reproach.

But then they did something absolutely horrific.  They stole the Friday Night Lights signature music and style for their preview:

That's it.  That's the last straw.  You've now treaded on 2 untouchable classics: Footloose and Friday Night Lights.  In the words of Coach Taylor ... You have a nice day.

Looks like my marathon training kinda worked

So my marathon training is all based on doing my longest run one month away from marathon day.  Leading up to that super long run and following that long run, I'll add/subtract 20 minutes from my run length every weekend.  So I'll do a 100 minute, 120 minute, 140 minute, 160 minute, 180 minute, 160 minute, 140 minute ... you get the idea.  It's like a bell curve of run lengths.

Here's how it mapped out.  Not too shabby.

Why Spotify is awesome, but I'll keep using iTunes

It seems to me that Spotify will become the primary music listening software in the US (if it isn't already). It's Pandora without unlimited skips, no commercials and all the pickiness your musical taste can handle.
Major pros as I see them ...

All your friends are automatically there with you.  And of course Spotify's primary drive is Facebook.  They're not trying to create their own new social media site (like Ping is).  They've realized that Facebook has won and they're using Facebook to their advantage.

This is the primary way that I have used and will continue to use Spotify.  When I want to share tunes with people, I don't need to send them the actual music.  I just put together a playlist and share the link.
And when I want to discover new music, I go on the look out for new playlists to subscribe to.  Some of the best Spotify lists I've found so far ...

• Pitchfork Top 500 albums of the 2000s
• Pitchfork 2010: Reviews above 8.0
• Pitchfork 2011: Reviews above 8.0
• Jared Followill's (of Kings of Leon) compilation of music he's shared on Twitter - the dude listens to a ton of music and most of his shares are solid.

And the best thing is that, as the authors of these lists update the lists, you get the updates too.  It's a subscription, not just a one-time offering.

My Spotify lists so far if you'd care to subscribe:

• Best of Dear and The Headlights - one of my favorite indie bands from Phx
• Best of Kings of Convenience - inspired by my upcoming concert rendezvous with one of my top 5 bands of the last decade
• Luke's Best Albums of 2011 - an ongoing list

The only cons on Spotify and the ones that will keep me using iTunes are:

As far as I can tell, Spotify doesn't have them.  I love stats at their core.  And with my iTunes library, I have a back log of 8 years of stats.  I can't live without my stats.

All of Spotify's playlists are static.  You drag songs to the playlist and that's that.  Smart playlists allow me to take in my entire music library with very little management so I can listen to an equal mix of new songs, old songs, favorite songs and songs I just haven't listened to in a while.

Then again, most people aren't me so ...

Stephen Lang is the greatest character actor of all time

I've only ever seen Stephen Lang in 2 things: Avatar and Terra Nova.

Considering the plot lines of these shows and Lang's role in both, I have to assume his resume reads as follows:

Exclusively seeking roles as a salty veteran military type guy that is on the front lines of a team that ventures to a foreign humanity saving world only to be followed to this world by the primary character years later (note: must be years later, months later would be ridiculous, I require realism in my plots), provide them with an inspiring and kinda scary orientational speech and then subsequently lead/intimidate the primary characters of the story.

As far as character acting goes, this guy puts Buscemi to shame.  Hell, he's even schooling that guy that is only in movies where he appears 70% of the way through the film only to eventually completely freak out and scream at everyone.

Video proof (NSFW).

My Three Least Favorite Harry Potter Cliches

So now that the Potter series is over (book form and film form), let's talk about the 3 most annoying recurring themes.

1. We all knew Harry Potter wasn't going to die in books 1 - 6. J.K. made it clear from the start that there are 7 years of school and there will be 7 books in the end. And yet every book the plot was always basically "uh oh, someone's out to kill Harry. Watch out!" Severus, Voldemort, Sirius Black ... it didn't matter. I wasn't worried. I knew book 5 wasn't going to be Hermione Granger and the Frizzy Hair. I knew book 6 wasn't going to be Ron Weasley and the Lack of Confidence.
2. Ron and Harry always sass Hermione when she says something with confidence. "Harry, get started on the tent." ... followed by Harry going "A tent? Where am I going to be able to find a tent!?" We're in book 7, Harry. Haven't you learned that Hermione has everything figured out at all times? PLUS we're talking about magic here. When Hermione says tent or gum drop or elephant that poops ice cream, I don't think it's a stretch to realize she can manifest anything in the world. And furthemore, Hermione's the only one that's actually good at magic.
3. Expelliarmus. F'ing expelliarmus. It's the only spell Dumbledore's Army knows. The Death Eaters can leave fangy clouds, turn into flying smoke monsters, split their soul into 7 pieces so they are basically invincible and actually kill people with their spells, but they can't fight off expelliarmus - the first f'ing spell you learn at Hogwarts. I thought you guys were pros, Death Eaters. Hold onto your wands, you f'ing rookies ... and you might have actually won this thing.

The Best iTunes Marathon Smart Playlist

So I've already documented the best smart playlist of all time - my Master Playlist. One place though where the master playlist won't do ... is while running.

When it comes to distance running, I break things into 3 phases:

1. Running1 - Songs to kick start your run early in the morning and get you going. Upbeat songs that might lean towards having a long lead in. Think "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Polution" by AC/DC or "Knocked Up" by Kings of Leon.
2. Running2 - I use these playlists when running half marathons and marathons and my secret to a good long run is keeping a good pace in the middle of the race. These songs tend to have a nice groove and often end up being the highlight of my run. Think "Use Me" by Bill Withers or "Covered in Rain" by John Mayer (what was once my most played song ever).
3. Running3 - Now that Running2 has effectively saved you from burning out at Mile 20, these are the drop dead adrenaline songs that are gonna bring you into the finish. Think "See Through Head" by The Hives or "Positive Tension" by Bloc Party.

So use the comments field in iTunes to label your songs as Running1, Running2 or Running3 according to the rules above and you'll have laid the ground work.

Now time to load the playlist. I like to be surprised by what's coming on next on my run, but obviously not totally surprised (I mean, we can't have a Running3 at the beginning of the run - am I RIGHT!?!?). So to load your playlist, first figure out how long you're going to be running for - let's say 2 hours. Divid the time into thirds (ish) - let's say 45 minutes for each third. Then set up 1 playlist to randomly pull 45 minutes of Running1, another playlist to pull 45 minutes of Running2, and another to pull 45 minutes of Running3.

Load all three of these playlists into one final playlist in order (so all the Running1s are first, Running2s are second, etc.) and voila!

You now have a random (and yet predictable) set of tunes that are going to pump you up, set your pace and let you finish strong (TWSS).

For example, here's what my system just spit out for tomorrow's Aspen Half Marathon:

Easy, right? What? I have too much time on my hands. Okay, fine. Ruin my fun.