How to fix iOS 5 slowdown on iPhone 3GS

Tuesday, 01 November 2011 15:31 greg

Since upgrading my iPhone 3GS to iOS 5 the phone has simply been horrible to use. Apps were slow to start, when typing an SMS the letters displayed were seconds behind the actual keys pressed, and responsiveness in many apps was very sluggish.

I started turning things off to see what improvements I could find. The biggest and most noticeable improvement has come from turing iCloud off. My theory is that every time an app started iCloud was checking if it needed backing up and potentially sending data over the network.

If your having similiar issues, try turning iCloud off. Simply go into setting, Tap iCloud and turn everything off. For now I've kept Find my Phone on, but turned everything else off. I will try turning certain features on to see what difference it makes.

How to enable and use iMessage in iOS 5

Thursday, 13 October 2011 14:24 greg

So you've done the iOS 5 upgrade and read all about iMessage, but how do you enable and start using it?

The first thing to do is go into settings on your iPhone and find the Message setting.

Touch that and ensure that the iMessage slider is set to on.

At the bottom of the screen you will see Receive at. By default this is set to use your mobile for SMS only. Tap Receive at, when you will see this screen.

Tap Use your Apple Id for iMessage, enter your  Apple Id credentials and tap sign in.

Then check the email address is valid and click next

Go back to the message application and when you create a new message to an iMessage user the screen will change to blue and iOS 5 will identify it as a new iMessage.

Comparing iOS, Android and WebOS part 2

Monday, 04 July 2011 14:58 greg

This is part 2 of my article, covering apps, homebrew and hacks. Part 1 covering the user inteface is here. By way of an introduction I have been in the fortunate position of having used a number of phones over the years, more recently including the iPhone 3GS, the HTC Desire and ZTE Blade (Orange San Francisco in the UK) running Android and the Pre2 running HP’s WebOS.

I thought it would be interesting to discuss and compare various aspects of the different operating systems, and how they handle events, updates, notifications, multitasking and a few other basic functions. This isn’t meant to be ranking the various operating systems, but I hope it will be useful to others. This was written in May and June 2010 and is based on iOS v4, WebOS 2 and Android 2.3.3 running the Cyanogenmod. iOS 5 is just around the corner, so I will update this when that is released.

The one thing to take into consideration with Android devices is that many manufactures choose to add functionality on top of Android, so HTC have their Sense interface and Sony have their own Xperia interface. Additionally there are a number of third party applications to change the look and feel of Android. In order to keep this article short and to the point this is based on stock Android with no additional skins installed, but with the ADWLauncher installed which is the Cyanogenmod default launcher.

I have broken the article down into a number of sub articles as follows:

1. User Interface
2. Apps inc homebrew and hacks
3. Multitasking and moving around the device
4. One handedness
5. Notifications
6. Outlook integration
7. Microsoft office integration

So let’s get straight into the second section, Apps inc homebrew and hacks.

Click read more below to continue into the article.

Last Updated (Monday, 04 July 2011 16:28)

Google sync for iPhone and iPad enhanced

Thursday, 16 June 2011 15:00 greg

Google have announced a number of improvements to their Google sync product for iPhone and iPad.

• Search all your emails in Gmail, not just the emails stored locally by the iOS mail app.
  
   
  
  
• Accept, decline or edit calendar events from the iOS calendar app.
  
  

Send email from the address you want. We recognize that some of you manage multiple email addresses from a single Gmail account.Gmail’s “Send Mail as” feature lets you send messages with another email address listed as the sender instead of your Gmail address, e.g. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it instead of This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Now the iOS mail app will respect these settings.

These three updates are available to both Gmail and Google Apps email accounts.
For more information, visit Setting up Google Sync with your iOS device

Last Updated (Wednesday, 22 June 2011 13:35)

Quickpix - free for a limited time

Tuesday, 14 June 2011 15:30 greg

No ads, no in-app purchases, just FREE for a very limited time! All we ask is that you tell your friends if you like it.

The NY Times' David Pogue says:
"Put this on your home screen...you'll miss a lot fewer shots."

Experience the fastest FULL RESOLUTION bursting available anywhere - just hold the still button and stand back!

Capturing the moment has never been this easy. You wouldn't delete great photos you've taken right? Why would you take the chance of missing a great moment with less capable camera apps?

Take it a step further as professional photographer Kevin Kubota suggests and "Put it on your dock. It's worthy."

Capturing the moment is something all great photographers aspire to do. And they know it has nothing to do with fancy UIs or bells and whistles. It has to do with raw camera performance. Find out why some of the world's top iPhoneographers like @DixonHamby have selected QuickPix as their go-to camera app. If it doesn't become yours, email us and we'll work hard to make sure it does. Try it today!

✓ Best on iPhone4, iPod Touch and iPad 2
✓ Also works on 3GS with performance limitations
* Does not support iPhone 3G at this time

Chosen as one of the "8 Apps That Should Have Been Part of iOS" TechNMarketing

Google search iPhone app now 20% faster

Wednesday, 18 May 2011 21:00 greg

Google announced that they have improved the speed of the Google search app by up to 20%.  One reason for this speed improvement is that they have turned off the talk to search feature, I wonder how many folk actually used that, I certainly never did!

They have also increased font size and made the entire search result tappable.

You can get the free iphone app here.

The two pics below show the differences

iOS 4.3.3 is out, including a tracking fix

Thursday, 05 May 2011 14:55 greg

Following the uproar over the iphone tracking debate, Apple have delivered on their promises and the iOS 4.3.3 update is now available.

This update contains changes to the iOS crowd-sourced location database cache including:

- Reduces the size of the cache
- No longer backs the cache up to iTunes
- Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

Free Time Out City Guides

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 12:39 greg

The following city guides are currently FREE for iPhones.

Paris: Travel Guide - Time Out 

London: Travel Guide - Time Out

Berlin: Travel Guide - Time Out

Barcelona: Travel Guide - Time Out

Buenos Aires: Travel Guide - Time Out

Zagreb: Travel Guide - Time Out