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It's spring in San Francisco, and that means it's time for Stupid iPhone Tricks.

This video covers the following tips:

-- Clever uses for your iPhone camera

-- Saving reference material as web pages

-- Making "fake podcasts" of audio and video material

-- Using "fake contacts" to sync notes with your Mac

-- Using the iPhone's backlight as a flashlight

And it may be more fun than humans should be allowed to have.

Download Macworld Video #46

-- Format: MPEG-4/H.264

-- Resolution: 320 x 240 (iPhone & iPod compatible)

-- Size: 10.4 MB

-- Length: 4 minutes, 27 seconds

Show Notes

Thanks to Macworld's Jonathan Seff, Dan Moren, and Sue Krenek for suggesting additions to these tips.

I realize that my mention of saving web pages for use on your iPhone might have gone by a bit too fast. Here's the short version: If you make web pages with basic info you'd like on your phone (like my bus schedule), you can then access them with your phone's Web browser. Then you can add those pages to your home screen, making them even more easily accessible.

To make a custom icon, the code you need to insert in the header of your web page is <link rel="apple-touch-icon" src="[url of your image]"/> . The image itself should be a 57x57 pixel PNG. You can make a different one for each page you make, if you like. For more info, see Apple's iPhone developer pages.

Red Sweater Software's Typecast is a free download. You can also see more about syncing different parts of your iPhone library with different Macs, and read about my discovery of Typecast and how it works.

I now realize I made two separate late-night talk show references in this video. My note on my "fake contact" screen refers to Johnny Carson's famous "Art Fern" routine. ("Take Highway 101 till you get to the Slauson Cutoff. Get out of the car, cut off your slauson, get back in the car.") And of course, this being Stupid iPhone Tricks, we owe a large debt to Stupid Pet Tricks. Please, I beg you--no wagering.

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