It is looking increasingly likely that Tuesday will be a big day with regard to what’s on our iPhones and iPod Touchs.

First up, it is looking like Tuesday is iTunes 8 Day. Among other goodies iTunes version 8 is said  bring a Pandora-like recommendation mode. As huge fans of Pandora’s "intelligent" stations we love the idea!

That’s nothing compared to the second improvement that is looking increasingly likely.

NOTE: Jim is the newest member of the WOiP team. New to the iPod Touch, these are some of Jim’s initial thoughts as he has started to get familiar with this incredible device.

Being a senior citizen doesn’t necessarily mean that you are technically challenged. Being a professional musician doesn’t mean you hate computers even though their presence has drastically altered the business of music forever. Apple computers and programs written for them have changed the face of how music has been produced.

The Apple iPhone stunned the world with the beauty of it’s design and innovative features. As the second generation of the iPhone has arrived and a new Touch is expected tomorrow. I have gotten my first opportunity to explore this communication phenomenon.

You always have to be skeptical of a post that starts with the words

"another little birdie told us…"

but a post over on ars technica (one of my favorite tech sites) certainly caught my eye today.

The posts reports that this Tuesday’s Apple event may be a bit more iPhone-esque than many of us expected. As they put it

"…it’s widely expected within some Apple circles that iPhone 2.1 will be released…" 

Good news… or at least good rumor.

But what… there’s more

This little tip may be obvious to many but I still think it’s worth mentioning, particularly since many of the applications available through the App Store with extensive documentation.

The tip– whenever you download a new program take a second to jump over to "settings" to see if the app added a new category for customization.

While this may be obvious for applications that require a login such as Pandora or reQall it may be less obvious for programs such as Save Benji’s. I know that it didn’t occur to me to look at the Settings area when I downloaded and tested the application (which happens to be amazing). The options available there, however, make the application far more powerful and user-friendly.

You can, for example, choose to set —

I’m really excited that this app is awaiting approval by Apple.

I’m also a bit peeved- not at the app but at the fact that this is something Apple should have included from the beginning.

They didn’t. Fortunately, Smart Dial fills in the gap Apple left and does so quite well.

SmartDial makes it possible to quickly dial someone who is in your contacts by spelling their name.

With it you can–

–find contacts by first and last name
–view contacts by default phone number or other alternative numbers
–recent call log

Edit: While you can do this from the contacts app, you cannot currently do so directly from the dial pad. Smart Dial means you only need the dial pad and, therefore, cuts down one step in making a call.

To make searches even faster, the settings page allows you to-