I have Tiny Tower Tips… but its not going to be found here at iCreateiListeniPlay.com!

Unfortunately, due to time, I can only maintain one website for specific subjects like iPhone, iPad, and apps related to these awesome apple products. You can find that here:

GlennMagasDotCom (www.glennmagas.com)

So my latest write-up is this – but it leads you to an awesome website (my website) and Tiny Tower Tips!

I will also try to transition all the articles here to my website or just point to them from an iCreateiListeniPlay “Page” as an index of previous articles.

Thanks for supporting this website!

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Are you looking for an alternative way of writing on your touchpad, iPad or iPhone?  Do you wear gloves and hate that you have to take them off to do a little work or play with your iPhone? Well, here’s a sleek little gadget that I have the priveldge of owning!

It’s a Boxwave mini Capacitive Stylus! (boxwave.com)

It’s small, hence the ‘mini’ title, and handy! For all you gadget lovers, this is a gadget you shouldn’t be without. Trust me, buy more than one because if you have two things: Kids and an iPad, either they’ll fight for the iPad, or they’ll fight for the Boxwave mini capacitive stylus to use it on the iPad!

This specific stylus is perfect as it comes with a little tether about 1.5 inches long, that attaches into the headphone jack of the iPad or iPhone. My concern is that it might get tugged off and lost – but unless you really tugg on it, it isn’t really going anywhere!

The stylus itself is about an inch long, has three groves to give you a little grip, and a soft rubber tip.

Here’s a picture of my iPad and a little writing I did on an app called “Ghostwriter“.

You don’t ever need to take your gloves off on those cold days! Never touch your iPad or iPhone screen for that matter! It’s all about the stylus with style!

The mini Capacitive Stylus from Boxwave is regularly $19.95… but at the time of this article, its on sale for only $12.95 so get it now!  (Boxwave Mini Capacitive Stylus)

Here’s the description straight from boxwave:
Navigate and jot down your ideas with the convenient mini Capacitive Stylus! This miniaturized pen stylus sports a pocket size form factor, and works with all capacitive screens. No longer will you have to take off your gloves off on a cold day just to use your Apple iPhone 4 as the mini Capacitive Stylus enables you to use your Apple iPhone 4 without ever touching the screen with your finger! Its portable size makes it easy to carry around, and can be stored away by attaching to your Apple iPhone 4’s 3.5mm headphone jack.

Remember: Get more than one! It’s fun!



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Secret Tips for your iPhone 4 (Voice Control)

Other iPhones: iPod touch (3rd generation), iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPhone 3GS

If you haven’t read, “How to maximize your iPhone Battery Life” go read it after this article. Why? Because some iPhone 4 owners may be complaining about slow performance and a weak battery, and instead of calling customer service just do a couple of the suggestions in that article!

Now, here’s a secret tip… well its not so secret but most iPhone 4 users have no clue this is a feature. It’s the Voice Control Feature.

What’s Voice Control? Well, that’s when you use your ‘voice’ to control something and get a result from your iPhone 4. Unfortunately, its limited to the iPhone 4 and not to magically produce a beer from the refridgerator.

Take a look at your iPhone 4 and hold the Home Button down for about 2 seconds and this will pop up and an audio prompt will be heard (two beep tones):

This is the Voice Control app for your iPhone 4. And before I get into a few details about the app, those who are driving and need to dial a phone number with your fingers, well, you better stop and use this from now on.

It’s as simple as saying, after you activate the app and hear the two audio tones, “Call Donna” or “Call… (nickname or name from your contacts” and it will give you an option of numbers of that person or persons if there are multiple matches. It will also give you multiple matches if that person has different numbers like, “Home, iPhone, or Work?” So if you know specifically who and how you want to call someone just say, “Call Donna iPhone”.

If you want to just dial a number you know, just say, “Dial 818-555-1212″.  Your iPhone 4 will repeat the number then call the number.

You never have to look at your iPhone again if you don’t want to!

It’s simple, easy, and safe – for those drivers out there who spend all their time talking on the phone!

That, to me, is one of the best feature of the Voice Control app – the other, is naming a playlist while you are on the treadmill or taking a jog. No need to look at the screen or take it out of your arm band to change songs.

“Play Playlist – ‘Run Music’”

“Play Album – Achtung Baby” – or how the iPhone interprets it, “Atch-Tounge Baby”. LOL

If you want the song to pause, “Pause”

If you want to skip a song, “Next Song”

If you want to repeat a song, “Previous Song”

You can even ask what song is playing, “What song is this” or the time, “What Time is it?”

There you go! Voice Control features on your iPhone 4 and you didn’t even know it!

For a list of tips read this: “iPhone Voice Control Cheat Sheet”

Other tips: “Tips for using Voice Control”

Related Articles:
“Maximize your iPhone 4 battery life”
“How to print from your iPhone or iPad”
“How to create a blur effect on a picture from your iPhone“

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iGiddy with iGadgets: HyperMac Micro

When the new Mac Life magazine arrived at my house, I couldn’t wait to get it open. And I drooled when I saw both the tips and tricks  you can do with your Apple products: From MacBook to the iPad, but extremely excited to see all these cool gadgets you can purchase. I literally drooled!

Drooling I say! I was drooling!

Well, okay, not literally. But figuratively, in my head, I was drooling – literally.

Okay, I had to peruse the magazine and saw all these ads for products for the iPad 2, iPhone 4, and other products, that it made me want to buy an iPad 2 just for the gadgets.

I do love my 32gb WiFi iPad (original), and I see no reason why I would need an iPad 2. Personally, I think the camera is pretty silly, and I don’t complain about the speed when i don’t know there’s anything better (like when I owned the iPhone 3G and not the 3Gs)… so I’m satisfied with what I have… for now.

But gadget-wise, I had to pick just one thing from the magazine to share on iCreateiListeniPlay 2.0.

When I get this Mac Life magazine, I flip every single page. I make mental notes on: I need to read this article, or I want to try that tip, or, I need to buy this thing or that. So here’s the ONE THING, among others, that stood out.  It may not be the best as I might find something even cooler later, but for now, it is the one thing that actually stuck out during my Mac Life magazine speed read.

It’s the HyperMacMicro external battery to charge your iPad or iPhone.

The HyperMac Micro comes with a 10W (5V/2.1A) powered USB port which can be used to charge your iPad, iPhone, iPod or any USB device. There are 2 ways to recharge the HyperMac Micro, charge via high power 10W (5V/2.1A) with a special USB-to-DC cable or via the computer with the mini USB cable. HyperMac Micro supports pass-through charging so that you can charge the HyperMac and the iPad/iPhone/iPod/USB device simultaneously!

The colors are “Nano” colors so you can color match your nano if you have one. They are available in 10 iPod nano colors (black/gray/silver/pink/red/ orange/gold/green/blue/purple) and housed in a luxurious aluminum casing, you will be spoilt for choice when finding the right battery pack to match your iPad, iPhone, iPod or any USB device.

Here are the features:
Features
- Aluminum housing
- Attractive non-battery look
- 3600mAh lithium ion battery
- Extend iPad battery life by up to 5 extra hours
- Fully recharge the iPhone up to 3 times
- Extend talk time by up to 36 hours, standby time by up to 900 hours, Internet use by up to 27 hours
- Extend video playback by up to 30 hours and audio playback by up to 90 hours
- 10W (5V/2.1A max) power via USB port
- Recharge via standard (5V/500mAh) or high power 10W (5V/2.1A max) USB
- Supports pass through charging, charge both battery and iPad/iPhone/iPod at the same time
- Military grade lithium ion cells, rechargeable up to 1,000 times
- Built-in short circuit, overcharging and temperature protection
- 1 year limited warranty

Right now, you can get a HyperMac Micro for $69 if you visit the website: HyperShop.com.

Of course, this gadget is perfect for you if you are draining your battery and want something portable so that you can charge your iPad, iPhone or iPod wherever you go: great for conferences if your a very super iPad user, great for travel – great for the home in fact!

Personally, I’m looking into the HyperMac 150wh: the HyperShop version for charging a 15″ MacBook Pro. The unfortunate thing about that product is the price. $349.95

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Getting the most out of your iPhone Battery (iOS 3.1+)

If you want to maximize your iPhone battery life, especially if you are one who drains the iPhone battery on a daily basis, here are some steps you can take to give you a little more ‘life’ so-to-speak.

Here are my top 7 things you can do to improve your iPhone Battery life which means less stress, and more usage for you and your iPhone! (These will also pertain to your iPad).

1. Clear out your Background Multitasking!
2. Set Brightness to “Auto”
3. Manage Notifications
4. Turn WiFi Searches OFF!
5. Manage your Location Services
6. Set Autolock to 1 Minute
7. Sync your iPhone

There are other things you may want to do to give your iPhone Battery life more longevity. But these 7 are a great start, and 6 that I absolutely recommended!

1. Clear out your Background Multitasking!

I’ve discovered that many iPhone 3Gs or iPhone 4 users do not realize that all the apps that they opened are still opened! And some are always running – like those that poll the internet in the background or like apps ‘waiting’ for calls. They are all found in the task bar.

Double tap your home button and you will discover your taskbar. And you may also discover, 100 apps open and most, you probably never use! Hold your finger on one of those apps and they will begin to shake.

Tap the ‘x’ on an app and it will disappear. You are not deleting the apps, as you would normally do if you tapped the ‘x’ on your desktop, but you are just deleting them from the background!

The most common response I’ve had from people is: “I didn’t even know I had that”. And sure enough, they discover their battery life is better!

2. Set Brightness to “Auto”

I love a bright screen. But I don’t love a dead battery. So when push comes to shove, I will choose my iPhone battery life more than a brighter screen.

Simply tap on the Settings icon, choose “Brightness”, set the brightness bar to the center (or more to the left for darker), and set Auto-Brightness to “On”.

3. Manage Notifications

If you are a heavy FaceBook user and you get notified every single time someone posts a reply to one of your updates or comments, you will be notified. Unless you need up-to-date notification from your FaceBook friends, just turn the Sounds, Alerts, and Badges off for FB and other Apps that you don’t need notifications from.

This could mean notifications from eBay to popular games, like Words Free and Angry Birds as well as a FB addon: Loopt. I really don’t care where someone is checking in every time they check in. So I turn those alerts off!

Tap on Settings, choose Notifications, and manage those apps that want to drain your battery every chance they can!

4. Turn WiFi Searches OFF!

Do you really need to know that there is a secured WiFi connection at the grocery store that you can’t even log on to? Well, your iPhone wants to let you know whenever there is a network to join. If you are looking, then look when you need to. But when you are just walking, or even stuck at a red light while driving, your iPhone is looking for a connection that you can join!

Known networks that you have already connected to will be joined automatically. So you don’t have to worry about being on 3G when you are within range of your known networks.

Tap on Settings, choose Wi-Fi, then turn “Ask to Join Networks” to “Off”.

5. Manage your Location Services

Just like managing Notifications, you should manage location services. Why do apps need to determine your approximate location? I still don’t know why you would want Angry Birds to know where you’re at when you’re playing. Others, like Urban Spoon makes sense. But iMovie, or TouchRacing? Who cares.

Tap on Settings, choose Location Services and have at it!

6. Set Autolock to 1 Minute

Your iPhone can sit idle, in your pocket, never to be used and still be on forever! Well, you can set it to 5 minutes, 4 minutes, and all the way down to 1 minute. This means, once you set it aside and you do not turn it off by pressing the sleep/wake button once, it will eventually turn off by itself and go to ‘sleep’ mode.

If you don’t set your Autolock to a specific sleep time, it can stay on all day long – draining your battery!

The default is 1 minute. But make sure its set or suffer battery life.

Tap the settings button, select General, Auto-Lock and choose the timing.

7. Sync your iPhone

Yes, syncing your iPhone on occasion is a great way to get up-to-date OS information to your iPhone. Staying up-to-date with the Operating System is a great way to make your iPhone as efficient as possible.

Plug your iPhone into your computer and make sure iTunes automatically checks for a new OS.

By following these 7 tips on preserving your iPhone Battery, you’ll have a longer lasting relationship with your iPhone on a daily basis. And rushing to get it to a charger won’t be a priority. And your complaints about how your iPhone dies on you so fast won’t be uttered from your mouth!

For more tips and tricks on your iPhone and iPad, please subscribe to iCreateiListeniPlay.com by filling out form on the right side bar of iCreateiListeniPlay website!

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There are several apps available for iPhone or iPad printing. Some are very limited to a specific printer, like HP. And those apps are very good printer apps but, as mentioned – limited.

The one I prefer, and use, is an App that has served its purpose many times – and the list of printers it can wireless ‘talk to’ is growing.

It’s called: PrintMagic/PrintMagicHD (for iPad) $3.99/$4.99 respectively in the iTunes store.

Print Magic HD works on ALL EPSON & HP wifi printers or wifi access & most of other OEM Brands (Brother, Canon, Lexmark, etc), Over 1,000 printers and climbing. I have two canon printers and tested Print Magic HD on both before writing a favorable review on iTunes.

I gave it 5 stars with the following review:

When Print Magic found both my Canon MP560 and Canon MX870 on my network, I was shouting from the mountain tops! Wow! What took so long for this App to come out?

The only drawback is that you have to copy the text you want to print. Mostly from emails for my use. If you want a webpage to print, copy the url. A picture, select and copy.

I tested each type of printing out and they all worked!

THIS IS A MUST HAVE APP!

The two Canon printers I used it on are the Canon PIXMA MP560 and the Canon PIXMA MX870.

I’ve run across many people who have stated, “I wish I could print from my iPhone”. Well, you can. Just have access to a wireless printer in your home or office, and print away. The setup is simple and easy, and you’ll be able to be more productive by using your iPhone or iPad to do, well, almost anything!

On a side note: I highly recommend the Canon Pixma MX870 printer. I absolutely love it and thing its the best printer I’ve ever owned!

Purchase the Canon Pixma MX870 Printer now at B&H Photo for $99.95. That’s a $70 savings (Offer good through May 31, 2011)

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If you have about 10 minutes of time, that’s all it will take to create an iPhone picture blur effect with the BlurFX app for your iPhone.

($0.99 in the app store).

I timed myself on taking a picture and bluring it. It took around 10 minutes for a decent effect that I was proud of.

For this case, I took a picture of my beautiful wife, wanted to have a background motion blur with a vintage look. So this is how it works.

How to create a picture blur effect right from your iPhone

Open BlurFX and choose “Edit New Photo” and do one of the following:
1. Load from album
2. Take a photo
3. Load session (if you have started one already)

Here’s how the picture will look when you load it into BlurFX: it will be blurred.

Notice the slider. You can increase and decrease the blur effect by moving the slider to the left or right respectively. I chose ‘Motion’ blur and moved it all the way to the right.

The picture is completely blurred. You have to ‘clean’ it in order to make the parts of your photo ‘unblurred’. So tap on the “Brush Type” on the bottom left. Choose a brush and size and use the slider to show the red circle in the center. It will change in size depending on where your slider moves.

Of course for larger areas you want to brush, like the center of the photo, chose a large brush size. As you do fine tuning, use a smaller size as shown above.

Tap on “Show Mask” and the picture becomes masked with red. The part you will ‘clean up’ will start to become visible and the red mask will stay blurred.

So lets get started.  Tap on “Clean” and start to swipe areas to clean away the red mask!

I started with my beautiful wife’s face. And tested the brush strokes on arms, and hair, to get a feel. Slowly but surely…

I have a decent area to work with. The fingers, and corners need to be fine-tuned – and the feather brush, the one on the right when you tape blur type, helps with determining lines to blend easily.

I cleaned a way more around the finger area as you can see above, then will tap “Blur” to remask the area around the fingers with a smaller brush.

And for a quick retouch, that’s what I have above.

But now I want to add a filter to give the photo a vintage type of look. So tap on “Filter” on the top.

You’ll get a row of different colored filters. Much like a filter you would put in front of your lens. And in this case I tapped the purple one to get…

Just what I wanted. A vintage iPhone photo of my beautiful wife without the distractions of the background.

A few retouches on bluring and cleaning and that’s what I have above.

Finally, tap on the “Save” button on the top right and you get to choose to save it as one of the following:

Export straight to your Photo Album, Twitter, Facebook, or even flickr – but you must log on to one of the accounts you will be uploading to. For this, I saved it to my Photo Album.

Here is the before and after.

BEFORE

AFTER

Simple, easy, fun, and 10 minutes of your time. The $0.99 (US) you spend on the app is well worth the price. After a couple of tries, you’ll be creating incredible iPhone pictures with blur effect in no time! This is a definate must have app for those that love their iPhone camera, and who want to create stunning pictures that you share immediately through MMS or your social network account!

Comments are appreciated!

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Addicted to Pandora

You are addicted if you need a Pandora fix every day!

One of the biggest announcements during the Steve Jobs Keynote on the iPhone 4 release date was a program people were using all around me – I just wasn’t that into it. And that’s the music streaming app called “Pandora”.

Just recently I have become bored of my playlist. And my iTunes funds were running dry so i decided to try Pandora.

Now, the reason I wasn’t that into Pandora was simply: data usage. Why stream music and pay for it when I have iTunes and my own music to play?

Well, everyone around me was using Pandora, so I had to check on it myself. Now… I’m addicted to Pandora.

Forget the radio on the iPad, forget listening to those radio stations on my ride home, a good set of ear buds and Pandora and I could care less how bad traffic is.

So here’s the deal: data usage.

If you are on WiFi you are golden. Don’t even worry about it right? But the ride home is different, and if you want to know if you are using your 2gb data plan to its max, this is what you’d have to be using on music streaming alone to hit that 2gb data mark…

2.5 hours a day (give or minutes).

That’s approximately 75 hours of music in a 30 day billing cycle. If you are listening to that much music via 3G, you better up your data plan because this does not include, emails, apps, and other online activities. If you have access to WiFi, and wherever you go you should try to find an access point, then don’t worry.

Pandora’s variety of music is incredible. I love those 70s rock hits, and after a while, I check out 80s hits! It’s a plethora of great songs and the monotony of an iTunes playlist can be put behind!

Pandora, among many other apps for your iPhone and iPad is a must! Especially for music lovers!

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The AT&T vs Verizon Debate

Is it just preference or does one beat them all?

New iPhone 4 users waited long and impatiently for the release of iPhone 4 for Verizon. Finally, early February 2011, the iPhone 4 was released to those Verizon customers who believed that everything with the Verizon iPhone would be head and heels better than the AT&T version.

I ‘was’ both an AT&T and Verizon subscriber: having multiple plans for my iPhone and other plans for family members on a, what people say, a more ‘reliable’ network. That being said, it was tough decision for me to wait for the Verizon iPhone or upgrade to the iPhone 4 on the AT&T network which I currently was on.

So the question for most is: which is better: AT&T or Verizon? Or what is the better iPhone 4: ATT or Verizon?

My decision was based solely on “why”. Well, I rarely talk on the phone. Its mostly texting and internet. That being said, AT&T was faster on the internet side, and well, texting is texting. So I stuck to AT&T and although someday, it is possible that I may switch, I’m looking at more Pros than Cons by being an AT&T subscriber based on my personal usage.

Here’s one debate: “Voice and Data”

The major difference when comparing AT&T and Verizon network is simultaneous voice and 3G data. You might want to call this, “Multitasking voice and data style”. Anyway, AT&T has it and Verizon doesn’t. Now, you can conference call on AT&T up to five calls simultaneously. Where Verizon only allows you only two! For some, this doesn’t really matter. For the teenagers and corporate America users, well, this might be a big deal. Imagine – 5 people on a call.

Now, I have ‘work arounds’ around this so-called limitation and can get more than 10, 20, 30 people on a conference call if I want. It’s just common sense on how to do it, but common sense aside, technology wins out on the AT&T side.

A limitation on the Verizon side when conference calling also limits you by not being able to switch between calls if a second one was outgoing. But you can ‘merge them’, UNLESS… the second call was incoming… and if you end the second or the merged call, you disconnect with both callers. Now that’s complicated.

The winner on this debate is convincingly: AT&T

Here’s my trick on 5+ conference callers for AT&T or Verizon: Call a friend, conference in another, and have both do the same by them calling a friend and conferencing another. And so on… Problem solved.

Thanks to engadget.com for the cool AT&T vs Verizon image! (att vs verizon)

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iCreate iListen iPlay 2.0

I hated the old ‘look’ and decided to get going with a whole new and favorite look. Most of my websites are Arras Theme based, so why not use this strong theme for my favorite brand: Apple.

As I rebuild I will be really focused on iMobile: like iBlogging from the iPhone or iPad, I will make sure to review and share my favorite apps, and keep you up-to-date on new Apple releases and rumors.

Right now I’m putting together a list of articles for iCreateiListeniPlay dot com which includes: iPhone 4 features you never knew you had, the benefits of understanding your ATT bill, the ATT iphone vs Verizon iPhone… and a whole lot more.

Please feel free to reply to this thread and give your suggestions on what you’d like to read or what you’d like me to research for you…

Alot of times its just me thinking: How do I do ‘whatever’ and I research it and share step-by-step processes on what you need to do to!

Please keep visiting this “NEW” iCreate iListen iPlay website and join in on the discussions!

Thanks for visiting

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