As an iPhone user since the 3G came out, the satnav function has always been somewhat limited and never really worked until the 3GS and the digital compass were released. There had always been this little bit inside of me thinking – how can Nokia make OVI and Nokia Maps for free though Apple still decide to charge us.

Co-Pilot, TomTom and a whole other array of sat-nav programs are now avaliable on the iPhone but come with a price tag which made me cringe a bit. If we were to take TomTom as a reputable sat-nav for the iPhone, you have to purchase the software RRP £49.99 and then the in-car cradel which is a further £99.99. Not only do you have to pay for both of those but when you come to changing your iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4, the cradle you have for your 3GS wouldn’t be compatible for the iPhone 4.

Now not a lot of people were happy with the prices of this as not only does TomTom take up over a gig on your iPhone but you have to purchase all of the accessories for it to make it full functional - and for the price of it you could go out and purchase a TomTom XL from a reputable retail store.

The point of the blog article is that iPhone users don’t have to pay for in-car GPS navigation programs like TomTom or Co-Pilot thanks to Navmii.  

No cost, high quality.

NavFree does everything you’d expect from in-car GPS/satellite navigation, enabling you to search for an address by postcode, city, street or house, and be instantly routed there with full voice directions. NavFree will also re-route you if you take a wrong turn and provides you with handy information on journey distance, estimated time of arrival, points of interest and live Google Search for local facilities. Regular map updates will also be provided free of charge.

The only thing you’ll have to pay for is the addition of extra functions such as speed camera locations, local petrol prices and traffic information, which will be available as in-app purchases.

Allowing auto-rotation, it seems to work pretty well on the iPhone 4 (user experience can vary dependent on iPhone) and according to Navmii there is going to be an Android version out soon.

Changing the face of iPhone sat-nav?

Peter Atalla, CEO of Navmii, talking about the app:

“NavFree changes the face of GPS navigation on the iPhone. Anyone with an iPhone can now have satellite navigation for free. Mapping is provided by OpenStreetMap and is stored on the iPhone, making NavFree faster and more accurate than other free navigation services. What’s more, because the maps are stored on the phone, there are no mobile data charges – just high quality, no cost navigation. Users will be able to contribute to the success of NavFree, by providing feedback on the maps, making NavFree a community built, free to use, navigation app for iPhone and iPad.”

-Via Lifestyle Phone

Do you currently have an iPhone but find that with the release of 4.0-4.0.1 its running slower than ever and the battery is being consumed too quick?-  If your answer was yes, you were in the same situation as me a few weeks ago when Apple released their iPhone 3G unhappy firmware which absolutely killed my poor 3G.

I found that not only the battery life was going faster than ever, but the actual phone was freezing at the sight of applications like TomTom, Games, Searches and texting – definitely what it is not meant to do on the tin.

1. Disabling Spot-light Search

Disabling Spotlight search will remove the search function from scrolling left on your home screen. This is useful if you want to search through archived information in your iPhone but not helpful if you have a 3G which needs as much processing power as possible.

If you want to disable this feature-

Settings > General > Home Button > Spotlight Search – ‘and just simply uncheck all of the options’

2.      Disabling Location Services

Location Services is a useful option if you are running applications like Co-Pilot, TomTom or using Google Maps for your GPS as it helps determine where you are.

If you were to disable Location Services, you are just disabling the GPS function within the phone. Now, as much of an annoyance it may be having to go back through your main menu to re-enable Location Services, a quick short-cut would be to open Google Maps – it will simply display it’s been disabled and give you an option onscreen to re-enable it.

If you want to disable this feature–

Settings > General > Location Services > Off

3.      Disabling 3G

This is really an optional extra if you want to disable 3G – it will mean that your internet browsing will be a bit slower than what it normally is.

3G definitely comes in use for faster web browsing but every little bit of battery helps especially with a 3G/3GS iPhone. You must also remember that you get a more consistent network type if you are on 2G compared to 3G. Data, Voice and Text services will still run like clockwork on a 2G reception and won’t be affected.

If you want to disable this feature –

Settings > General > Networking > Enable 3G – Set as ‘Off’

4.      Disabling auto-rotation (applicable for iPhone 3GS/ 4)

Disabling auto-rotation in itself is a good feature to have as an enable/ disable feature giving the user more ways to customize their iPhone. Having an option for any iPhone to free up more processing power and keeping the response there – the autorotation disable feature is worthwhile. 

The unfortunate thing is Apple have only enabled this feature with the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 leaving the 3G to its own accordance which is rather unfair as the iPhone 3G is the phone which struggles the most with processing power and always lagging.

If you want to disable auto-rotation –

‘Double Tap Home Button’ > ‘allow multi-tasking function to open’ > ‘scroll to the left to iPod controls > select the locked padlock and circle around it’

5.      Clearing any Cache, Internet History and Cookies

All of the three above are created from applications such as Safari where it stores login details from pages e.g. Facebook. As nice as it is to have all the information stored in Safari for this, you can download specific apps for Social Networking through the App Store.

In essence, the more temporary files are created, the large these get then the slower your phone gets.

You can download an application which does all of this for you called ‘Memory Sweep’ and you can download it here

Or if you feel ambitious, you can do it manually here –

Settings > Safari > Clear History/ Clear Cookies/ Clear Cache

6.       Select other Domain Name endings .co.uk/.com etc

This is a really good top-tip whilst you’re in Safari and it enables you to easily put the extinction of a URL into the address bar. If you now hold down the ‘.com’ button, it will now display a whole load of new endings e.g. .com/.co.uk/.org and more

7.      Disabling Wi-Fi

This is good practice to keep your Wi-Fi as disabled as it will preserve your battery for longer. If you decide to keep it enabled, your iPhone will look for new networks whenever it wants to and simply alert you when a new hotspot is available. When you want to stream anything like BBC iPlayer or Catch-up TV on Demand (www.iphone.tvcatchup.com), I would recommend re-enabling your Wi-Fi to save the data on your data plan.

To disable you’re Wi-Fi –

Settings > Wi-Fi > Off

8.   Most important of them all –  Backing up your iPhone

One of the first thing anyone should do when they get an iPhone and maintain doing it once or twice a week for best practice would be backing up your iPhone.

In iTunes, where your iPhone name appears on the left hand side, right click on the iPhone name and select ‘Backup’ and ‘Transfer all purchases’. This will create an image of backup storing all contacts, images and settings onto your computer as well as put all your applications into your iTunes library ready for re-sync.

This comes in use if you need to send your phone away for repair or if you have to claim through an insurance policy for a new iPhone. With restoring the image, when you get your new iPhone and you come to the configuration screen, it will automatically prompt you with a previous backup option of restoring it.