There have been plenty of ways to view Flickr photos and upload to Flickr from your iPhone using third-party apps. But Yahoo's Flickr for iPhone app is the company's first official take.
How is it? We're sorry to report that for avid uploaders, it's only so-so. You can search, view your photostream, and also friends' photostreams. You can also take and upload photos or video--for the latter, only if you've got the video-enabled iPhone 3GS. Commenting, e-mailing a photo, and tagging are also present.
So what's the problem? Flickr for iPhone is missing some management basics like deleting photos from the photostream, editing tags, and zooming in on a photo. These may seem small, but they add up to an experience that isn't fully baked. Catch all the pros and cons in the First Look video above, and share your own opinion in the comments.
Related story: Smile! Flickr has an official iPhone app
Last week when it first updated, we related our first impressions of Facebook for iPhone 3.0. Now that's we've spent some more quality time with it over the weekend, we can confirm that the 3.0 update is huge. Sure, it takes up more room on your iPhone or iPod Touch, but that's not what we meant.
The real growth spurt comes from the pile of new and improved features that Facebook has poured into the app. They range from the typical--support for landscape mode, capability to change your profile picture--to the powerful--such as creating photo albums and kicking off a text message or call from the Facebook interface.
That last point echoes a central thesis in a June 2009 Wired article ("The Great Wall of Facebook"): by storing intensely personal data about real people--their likes and dislikes, e-mail addresses, friends, activities, and even phone numbers--Facebook is creating a formidable "second Internet" to rival Google. Indeed, the SMS and phone call triggers on Facebook for iPhone 3.0 (and a similar feature on Facebook for BlackBerry that hooks into your address book) do influence, even facilitate, the way you contact friends in real life. Now you can rely on a Web-based network as a point of entry to your actual social life.
But that feature is just one of many. See the new Facebook for iPhone 3.0 in action in this First Look video. If you have used it, let us know how you like it.
Many people have complained lately about AT&T's network problems. My solution to spotty 3G data coverage: switch to Verizon.
Here's how.
The Verizon MiFi is a cigarette pack size portable access point. It takes the cellular data from Verizon and rebroadcasts it as Wi-Fi. There's also a version for Sprint's data network, if that works better in your area.
The MiFi is smaller than an iPhone. And of course, this trick will work for any phone that has Wi-Fi. Although it might not make much sense if you were using a Verizon or Sprint phone.
Turn on the MiFi and make sure it's running.
Go to your phone and connect to the MiFi's Wi-Fi access point.
Now you have Verizon's data network behind your phone.
And this means a couple things. For one, I get much better data coverage in my area with Verizon. For instance, AT&T's 3G network craps out about halfway across the Bay Bridge, cutting off my Pandora, or Twitter or whatever else I'm using. The Verizon data network stays connected all the way across.
Another happy accident of using the system this way is you get around data network restrictions. ... Read more
Documents To Go (with and without support for Microsoft Exchange attachments) is one of our favorite applications for turning your iPhone into a home office. But it's not anywhere near complete and it has some formidable competition in the form of Quickoffice Mobile Suite, another premium offering.
If you're in the market for a document editor and creator, this video will give you a peep at what Documents To Go can offer in its first application release.
Go to Settings, then General, then Keyboard and turn off autocorrection. You can turn off autocapitalization, too.
Also while you're there, you can turn on or off the option for a caps lock key and turn on or off the option to make double tapping the space bar type a period--good for typing Web addresses quickly.
Here's how to take control of time in your iPhone.
Go to Settings, then General, then Date & Time. Turn on or off Set Automatically. You can also have 24-hour time, like they do in Europe and the Army.
Here's how to turn on autofill in the new iPhone firmware.
Go to Settings, then choose Safari, and then choose AutoFill.
You can choose whether to use info from your contact list or previous names and passwords you've entered. This can really speed up filling out forms in the browser.
You need to have an app installed, like BeeJiveIM, that uses notifications.
Then go to settings, then notifications, and turn on notifications.
For more precise control, under notifications, you can go into a particular apps settings and choose to have notifications by sound, text alert, or having a number badge show up on the app's icon.
In this week's Buzz Report, I suggested (gently, of course) that the iPhone sucks on AT&T. I'm certainly not the first to suggest it: there's a pending class-action lawsuit over flaky 3G connectivity and AT&T and Apple are pointing fingers at each other over ongoing network and connection issues. Plus, every person in the background of my rant is someone who works at CNET and has had trouble with their iPhone (mostly because we don't even get service in our downtown San Francisco office).
So far, the feedback I've gotten leans heavily toward problems with iPhone/AT&T connectivity, but not everyone is having the same experience. So, here's your chance to tell us your story! What's your iPhone-on-AT&T experience like?
Watch the show on CNET TV.
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