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How to Share Your iPhone's Data Connection Right Now
Don’t want to wait until iOS 4.3 becomes publicly available to share your iPhone’s data connection? There’s a way to do it, but you’ll need to also have a Mac handy, so it isn’t the most portable solution. Still, if you’re travelling with a group and your hotel doesn’t have Wi-Fi, or you’ve setup a multi-device mobile workstation on a train, it could come in handy. And since the iPhone 3G won’t be getting iOS 4.3, this could come in handy for users not yet wanting to retire older devices.

First, you’ll need to have tethering enabled on your iPhone. Tethering allows you to share your connection with one device over Bluetooth or USB. If you don’t know how to enable tethering, or get it working on your Mac, iPhoneinCanada.ca has a great step-by-step guide.

Once you’ve got tethering enabled, you can share your connection with other devices using your Mac’s built-in AirPort Wi-Fi. You can do this in System Preferences under “Sharing.” The screencast below shows exactly how to do this.

You can also enable WEP password encryption by clicking on the “AirPort Options” button on the Internet Sharing screen.

Now that you’ve set up Internet Sharing, you should be able to find a Wi-Fi network on your other devices with the network name of your Mac, which in this case is “Darrell’s iMac.” Just select that network, and enter the WEP password you chose if you enabled password protection.

I’ve used this little trick frequently on family vacations, and will probably have cause to use it more than once before iOS 4.3 becomes available to everyone. Watch your usage, though, as you could hit your monthly bandwidth limit pretty quickly depending on who you share with.

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Dockem Makes Wall-Mounting Gadgets Quick and Painless
I’ve being weighing my options for wall-mounting my iPad and iPhone since I first got the devices, but no current solution really meets my needs, which are simplicity, flexibility and ease of access. The Kickstarter-funded Dockem looks like it might be just what I’m looking for.

The Dockem’s simplicity of design is what makes it most appealing. It features two parts, which basically act as little shelves that you can space apart from one another on the wall according to the size of the gadget you intend to use with the Dockem. One of these two parts also features a small tab designed to prevent your device from falling forward out of the mount. Both parts can be affixed to any smooth surface via 3M Command strips, which are glue-backed velcro strips that come cleanly off of walls and can carry considerable weight (spoken from personal experience — if it’s hanging in my apartment, it’s hanging on these things).

Other solutions like the Wallee for iPad ($49) or the Dockalot ($199) offer solutions tailored specifically to the iPad, but in both cases, there’s a significant amount of work involved in installation, cost is considerable, and if you want to wall mount something other than an iPad, you’re out of luck.

Unlike either the Wallee or the Dockalot, the Dockem won’t win any awards for beautiful industrial design. Without a device, it looks like someone maybe forget to remove some hardware for mounting drapes, and even while holding a device, it doesn’t look much better. But it’s easy to install, easy to remove, compatible with cases and skins, and getting your device in and out takes no time at all. Personally, I don’t mind something being ugly if it’s also incredibly functional, which the Dockem definitely looks to be. Check it out in action in the video below.

When contacted for comment, Dockem creator Chris Moyer explained why he thinks his product has the advantage over other similar solutions:

Besides being much cheaper, the main advantages of the Dockem is that it’s universal (not just limited to the iPad), can be mounted easily to almost any surface without causing any damage, can be removed even easier, and doesn’t require any special case. Simply put, it provides the most function at the lowest cost!

Dockem is being funded through Kickstarter, which funds projects through individual contributor pledges, as mentioned above. As of this writing, it’s already achieved about a third of its funding goal, with nearly two months left to go, so it looks likely to be made. A $15 pledge nets you a pre-order, and if it doesn’t reach its funding goal, you don’t get charged. Dockem may not be the next $1 million idea, but I think it’ll still do pretty well.

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App Store Beats iTunes to 10 Billion Downloads by 6 Years

Apple has posted a downloads countdown page on its site as it approaches 10 billion apps downloaded. This year marks the App Store’s third birthday, so that’s an average of over 3 billion app downloads per year. iTunes took eight years to reach the same milestone.

What makes that figure even more interesting is the fact that just last year, Apple celebrated the 10 billionth download from the iTunes Music Store in similar fashion. That milestone came a full eight years after the debut of the iTunes store, which makes for an average of just over 1 billion downloads a year.

That’s six years difference in how long it took each store to reach the 10 billion download mark. However, it’s easy to see why the difference exists; there are millions of iOS devices out there, and since there are a whole load of free apps available, that’s got to account for a large percentage of those downloads. Whereas a large proportion of the App Store is free, only a very small minority of the iTunes Music Store offerings can make the same claim.

There’s also the fact that a lot of people get their music from sources outside of Apple, something which isn’t possible to do with apps without jailbreaking. People new to Apple devices likely already have an established music collection, but someone who’s never had an iOS device before won’t have any apps at all, making them more likely to download apps than music.

While Apple celebrates 10 billion downloads, HP-owned Palm is getting excited about having surpassed 100 million downloads from the webOS store. Palm may not be an iOS competitor on the level of, say, Google, but the discrepancy still says a lot about the app gap between Apple and the rest of the market.

Whoever downloads the 10 billionth app on the App Store is up for a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, so hit up that Top Free apps list and get to it. If you’re interested in finding out how much you’ve contributed to those download numbers, you can use Geoffrey’s method for determining your yearly app spend to track and tabulate your total iOS app downloads.

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How to Do What the Mac App Store Doesn't: Uninstall Apps

So you’ve just installed tons of apps from the Mac App Store, but now you realize you don’t really need that fifth Twitter client. How to uninstall it? Unlike Windows, OS X doesn’t have a “Remove Programs” tool, but the answer is actually simpler than that.

All you have to do is navigate to [Your User Name]/Applications, locate the app you want to remove, and drag it to the Trash icon on your dock. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command+Delete. Since Mac applications are all packed into bundles (that’s the icon you drag to the Trash) just deleting the bundle removes the app.

However, there is one catch. A lot of apps leave behind external files, such as preference files, dotted around your system, which don’t get deleted when you send the application bundle to the Trash. You could hunt around and manually delete those files, but it would be very time-consuming and there’s no guarantee you’ll find every one. Luckily, there are some third-party apps that will handle this for you.

AppZapper is one of those apps. When you want to uninstall another app, fire up AppZapper. Instead of dragging the application to the Trash, drag it to the AppZapper window. AppZapper looks through your hard drives for any files related to the app you’re deleting. It presents you with a list, and you can uncheck any items you’re not sure you want to delete before finalizing the process. All files are sent to your Trash bin, too, so if you have second thoughts you can also recover them there.

Version 2.0 of AppZapper introduced a new feature called Hit List which lets you see all your installed apps, and filter them according to when you last used them and how much space they’re taking up on your drive. It’s a great addition for those who’ve neglected their Applications folder for a while and aren’t sure where to start cleaning up.

AppZapper isn’t the only ‘uninstaller’ for the Mac. There are others, such as AppDelete. Whichever you choose, it’s a good idea to use one to make sure your Mac is clear of potential ‘bloat’ left behind from apps you don’t even have any more.

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