I use a Smart Playlist called “Recently Added” a lot on my iPhone. Whenever I add a new track, that’s my go to list. With the latest update to iOS 5, the list started to display in reverse order when synced onto the phone, which makes it impossible to play a series on newly added songs in sequence, since the newest is the last on the list.

Luckily, I found a solution. You need to edit the playlist by right clicking and selecting “Edit Smart Playlist”. Under “Match the following rule”, I had “Playlist” is “Music” previously. I editted the playlist and chose “Media Kind” rather than “Playlist”. After that, everything went back to normal after I synced it onto the phone. If you’re having the same problem, perhaps this will solve it for you too.

As much as people around the internet have been complaining that they were expecting more out of this iPhone release, I’m desperately in need of a new phone. Here in Canada, we’re stuck with 3 years contracts for carrier subsidized iPhones, so I’ve been using an iPhone 3G for over 3 years now. The iPhone 4S is so much better than my current phone that I have no problem buying an iPhone 4S. I certainly can’t stand my 3G for another year. Besides, even if it looks like last year’s model, the internals and software are a huge step above the iPhone 4.

Naturally, I want to get my iPhone 4S as soon as possible. When I heard that pre-orders were starting this Friday, I needed to know when I could order mine to make sure I could get it right away. There doesn’t seem to be too much consensus on the exact time the pre-order will start on the 7th, but MacRumors is reporting that Apple reps are telling people that it’ll be 12:01am PST, so I’ll be frantically refreshing the page then to try to be one of the first online to order one. Wish me luck!

In mobileSafari, go to the following address:
www.google.com/ig/i?source=mofe

That should allow you to load the proper iPhone optimized version of iGoogle. The only problem is that all my descriptions come up with “Information is temporarily unavailable.” I’m not sure if it’s going to stay that way, or if you’ll have different results, but at least this is better than using the standard mobile version of iGoogle.

Hope that helps someone out there.

I found the following explanation from a Google employee on the Google support pages, which had a lot of angry people sounding off:

Hey everyone, I have an update for you. We’ve decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We’ve found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones — we want to ensure you’ll all see the same version.

Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren’t compatible with most mobile browsers.

Honestly, Google, if you’re listening, this was the stupidest decision I’ve seen you make yet. Your iPhone support had been so great and suddenly you fuck all of us iPhone users without even any notice. Not only am I pissed off because we’re losing some great functionality that I used on a daily basis, but also because it tarnishes my view of Google, which up until now, I believed could do no wrong. Well, you did wrong Google. You really fucked it up on this one. As I was discussing with someone on Twitter, more people need to get angry about this and they need to create some visible public outcry.

If you’re as pissed off as I am about this majorly bone-headed move my Google that basically tells us iPhone users that we don’t matter anymore, then go over to this discussion and tell Google how upset you are.

P.S. Google, your new favicon also sucks!

UPDATE: I found a partial fix, check it out.

I use iGoogle on every computer that I use on a regular basis. I get all my headlines, my mail, my calendar, all in one place and my internet experience is easily brought with me whatever computer I use. The iPhone is no exception. I daily open iGoogle on my iPhone and read a large list of all my iGoogle content. It’s great, or should I say, it WAS great.

Today, I opened iGoogle on my iPhone and noticed that Google released a new version of the mobile iGoogle site. At first, I thought it might be kind of cool. The item titles looked better to me, but then as I read the page, and I noticed that not all of my iGoogle stuff was there. It looks like they made it so that your mobile iGoogle settings are separate from your computer iGoogle settings. I’m not too happy about that. Basically, not all of my iGoogle items were being displayed and I had to select ‘Add Stuff’ on the mobile site that brought up a list of all of the things that ought to be there, which were there in my computer’s iGoogle. All my news feeds now only display 3 headlines per feed and you have to click “more” under each block in order to read a set of 5 headlines and more detailed descriptions for each. I liked the old interface better. Not only could I see the same amount of headlines on my computer and my iPhone, but I would also have the entire thing on one page. With the new interface, after 6 blocks, it creates another page for the remainer of your headlines blocks. It now requires that I visit several more pages to be able to view my feeds, which really blows. I can’t just glance at 7 at a time. I’m limited to only 3 at a glance, and only 5 after I click more. What was Google thinking with this.

The one semi-decent featured added to this mobile iGoogle revision  is the ability to set the order of how things will appear. Before, the order of the blocks didn’t match on the computer iGoogle and the iPhone iGoogle. Unfortunately, this was also pretty poorly implemented. You can only either send a block to the top of the list, or to the bottom, meaning you can’t pick your favourite and make it your top choice and then order the pages in that order. It really makes it difficult to arrange things the way you want them if you decided that you like something that is 4th to be something like 3rd, because you can’t simply tell one item to go third. You have to sent it to the top, and then resend your 1st and 2nd choice to the top. Really, what they should have done was make sure the computer headlines order matched the iPhone iGoogle order and they wouldn’t have had to make this strange independent settings page specifically for the mobile iGoogle.

I know this is turning a bit into a rant, and I should probably try this new mobile iGoogle for longer before I post this, but damn it Google, you screwed up my iPhone feed reading. I’m not impressed. This might be a good version for non-iPhone users, and maybe they’re trying to create one single mobile iGoogle version, but I want the iPhone version back!

UPDATE: I found a partial fix, check it out.

If you’re looking for some great iPhone or iPod Touch wallpapers, you need to read this article.

Image from Poolga

I just came across a great iPhone and iPod Touch wallpaper site called Poolga, which features quality wallpapers from designers and illustrators from around the world. This isn’t another cheesy wallpaper site. All the wallpapers have a great design flare to them and look like they were made by people with talent.

These guys mention that they “hate the standard wallpapers and cheesy nature themes available everywhere. That’s why we create our own, and thought it would be nice to share them.” I’m in total agreement with them and love that they created what they did.

I’m always looking for cool new wallpapers for my iPhone. Even after I find one that I love, I eventually get sick of it and finding a new slick wallpaper brings new life to the every day use of my phone. Poolga will certainly help me more than one time in the future to find something cool without wasting countless hours looking through ugly wallpapers to find a gem. Poolga is definitely one for the bookmarks.