iPhone  version 2.2 is in the pipeline for an upcoming release some time in the near future and, once again, it will bring some nice goodies. Wired.com has a nice overview of what we can expect.  Before you run through a quick summary, let’s take a second to list a couple of things that likely will not be there.

Cut and Paste – No

Push Notification (to compensate for not having apps running in the background) – Nope

Enhanced Bluetooth for wireless stereo or use with a keyboard – Nah

So what can we expect? According to the article we are looking to gain-

Among the most important time-saving utilities on my Mac, is a little application called TextExpander (TE). At its most basic, TE is about text macros, little shortcuts that let me type one thing into the keyboard and have the computer type a very different, and usually loner or more complex thing, on the screen.

For example, if I type my initials but double up on the first letter, TE inputs my email address into the text I am writing. If I type the initials of this website but double up on the "w", TE types the site’s url. It is a HUGE timesaver!

So having it on my Mac has made my life a lot easier. What about my iPhone, you ask? 

Well, WideMail was just updated to version 1.2 and a simple, but useful, version of this same functionality is part of it.

I updated my copy of the application, set up a number of these shortcuts, and started using it. How is it?

QuickSend, one of the many apps that make quick work of sending short, "stock" e-mail messages to one of a small, preselected group of contacts, just received a nice update.

Because QuickSend uses a " spinner" in order to choose which piece of text you want to send to which contact, it is, by far, the best of this genre of application when it comes to one-handed use. This update makes the application work much better than it had previously.

Using this application is simple.  After for setting it up by choosing a number of contacts and customizing the messages you want sent,  you simply start the application, turn the spinner to the contact to whom you want to be in touch, and the second spinner to the piece of text you want to send, and  hit the "e-mail" button. That’s all it takes. Moreover, the application currently has an experimental feature for doing exactly the same thing to SMS contacts in addition to e-mail.

 This updated version of the application includes the following —

The newly updated (to version 1.1) School of Rock has just seen a huge price drop from $6.99 to a mere $.99. As a fan of the movie, the app caught my eye when it was first released, but, I wasn’t  in the mood to drop another $6.99 on something that had an equal chance of being being good or being little more than a movie advertisement.

With a price drop down to $.99 I was willing to take the plunge.

Friends, trust me, this application isn’t "little more than a movie advertisement". It happens to be a much more complicated and well-done application for the iPhone than I expected.

The good folks at Engadget are reporting that the on-again / off-again / on-again / off-again free WiFi at Starbucks is…

On Again! 

Word is that text messages are being received near and far with word that owning the iPhone translates to two hours of WiFi conectivity per day for nothing!

We’ve been down this road numerous times in the past but, hopefully, this time is for real.

Java anyone?

via Engadget
 

We’ve looked at a number of apps that make it simple to quickly shoot off a pre-formatted email in just one or two steps.

Our app of choice has been MailDash. It works well and, through the use of templates and text snippets, offers an amazing level of customization.

The first app we reviewed in this genre, ReplyButler, was just updated to version 2.0. It has a lot to offer.

What ReplyButler has going for it, first and fremost, is the fact that it isn’t as feature rich as MailDash. It doesn’t offer nearly the same degree of customization and that can be a good thing. Why? Because it means that ReplyButler is incredibly simple to use.

With ReplyButler all you do is pick one of the text snippets, add a contact’s email address and hit "send". Fast, quick, done. In a rush, which is when an app like this is useful, this might be a very good thing.

This update does, however, add two nice features to the app.