One of the benefits of mass consumer adoption of mobile technology is that many companies are beginning to develop some very cool and useful applications. Not all Smartphone apps are useful but the latest app offering from Microsoft is an interesting one and the way they are making the offer is sure to trickle to other app providers. For a limited time, you can download the Top 100s by Year by Bing iPhone app for free. As the name of the app implies, you can literally listen to the Top 100 songs between 1947 and 2009… for free. No strings attached. You will, however, get popup reminders in between a few songs to remind you to download the Bing app. To be able to listen to thousands of songs for free, I think this is something all users can live with. I can only imagine how royalty payments (if any) are tracked and how long Microsoft will offer this for free. If you love music and have an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, install the app now.

Do you think this free giveaway will help Microsoft increase Bing app installs? Only time will tell but giving mobile users the ability to listen to thousands of Top 100 songs for free is definitely a great incentive for any campaign in my opinion; one that only few companies can even consider offering.

Note that you will need a US iTunes account to download and install the app. Here is the official description

Hear thousands of the greatest songs of all time.

This $1.99 app is offered for FREE by Bing for a limited time.

Please help keep this app free longer by downloading the Bing app now.

What were the top songs for 2009, the year you were born or graduated from high school?

Spin the wheel to find the year you want to hear. Click and listen. View the list to find the #1 song for that year, from 1947 to 2009.

These lists are not solely based on the Billboard charts and record sales, instead, these are lists of songs that have stood the test of time based on their initial and lasting popularity, and on their impact on the overall scope of musical history.

Feedback is welcome at forums.nutsie.com.

The songs are streamed in shuffle mode like a web radio station through 3G, Edge or Wi-fi.

Enjoy!

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Did you get a new computer and now want to sync all your iTunes and iPhone data to the new computer? For anyone going through this process, take comfort in knowing that there is a simple way to seamlessly transfer all music, photos, data and iPhone apps to the new machine. There are quite a few articles discussing this but having to wade through all the technical data is daunting. In short, here is a simple process that worked for me. Note, I installed Windows 7 on a new harddrive so I still had all my old data after the new install. If you are doing an upgrade, be sure to backup all your data for the move and you will still be able to use this migration method.

1. Upgrade to the latest version of iTunes (this will make the transition easier as the new machine will also be running the same version of iTunes)
2. Sync iPhone on old computer for the last time
3. Deauthorize iTunes on the old machine
4. Copy the entire My Music folder from the old computer to the new computer
5. Install the latest version of iTunes on the new machine
6. Plug in the iPhone on the new machine and sync
7. Re-setup any preferences (where to sync music, photos, videos, contacts etc…) and re-sync again on the new machine and authorize the new iTunes

My original setup on the old iTunes machine was pretty much default and I just let it control most of the settings. So by setting iTunes up on the new machine similarly, I was able to just copy the entire My Music folder (where the iTunes folder is stored in) and let iTunes re-sync everything. iTunes did not miss a beat and did not complain about any missing libraries (or anything else) on the new machine. To my delight, it just continued to sync with my iPhone as if it was running on the old machine.

So if you are moving to a new computer and want to sync your iPhone to a new computer, give the above process a try. As with any computer move, just be sure to have backups of all your data before the move. Smooth syncing!

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After a few hours of testing (& hair pulling), I was finally able to use an iPhone to view YouTube videos on a Wi-Fi connection without the dreaded buffering problem. For those who are also suffering from slow YouTube connections on your iPhones over Wi-Fi, here is a fix.

There is more than enough evidence out there that when using an iPhone over Wi-Fi, YouTube videos are barely (if at all) watchable. Here are a few of these discussions:

• iphone+Wi-Fi+youtube slow?
• YouTube Really slow on iPhone
• iPhone 3G + Wi-Fi + YouTube = Slow!

Something is bottle-necking the connection and most videos are extremely slow to load or they simply time out. Ironically, the hang ups do not happen when viewing YouTube content on the slower 3G network; the problems only occur over Wi-Fi. Having read quite a few online discussions about this problem, I began methodically testing variables on our Linksys WRT54GL wireless router.

Here are some of the most relevant settings that were tweaked:

• Afterburner
• Frame Burst
• SecureEasySetup
• Wireless Channels
• Bradcasting SSID
• Wireless Network Mode

Currently, the wireless network is set to G-Only since this was the best setup for our office. It was only when I switched the Wireless Network Mode to B-Only that YouTube videos began watchable again. None of the other settings had any effect.

YouTube Videos Play Fine on Slower 3G Network; Not Wi-Fi

So why would watching YouTube videos on the slower 3G network play fine but not over the speedier G-Only Wi-Fi? While on the 3G network, the lower resolution of YouTube videos are downloaded while on Wi-Fi, the higher resolution of the video would try and load. So the reason why video would play well on the slower 3G network is because a lower resolution video is being loaded.

iPhone YouTube Wi-Fi Slow – RESOLUTION not SOLUTION

Sure, B-Only wireless settings allowed the iPhone to view YouTube videos but the Speedtest.net iPhone app does show slower speeds while the router setting was on B-Only versus G-only. Not only just for the iPhone but using B-Only would slow down the entire wireless network in the office. Although B-Only was a fix, it was not a solution. Needless to say, after finding this fix, our router was re-setup for G-Only.

After hours of testing, I believe this hiccup has something to do with Safari on the iPhone and its ability to run YouTube videos properly over Wi-Fi on 802.11g. Everything seems to work smoothly over 802.11b.

Let’s hope Apple has a fix on the next update! In the meantime, if you really need to watch YouTube videos on your iPhone, try using the built-in YouTube app on your iPhone to view them or set your wireless router to B-Only mode.

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There seems to be a glitch on the iPhone 3G when it comes to deleting emails. Through one of my IMAP accounts, when I try to delete an email, I consistently get the error “Unable to Move Message”. When the email account was setup on the iPhone, it was already selected to move deleted emails to the local trash folder of the phone. If you are also unable to delete emails on your iPhone, try this. Go inside:

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > Email Account > Advanced > Deleted Mailbox

Then tap on Trash – even though you may already have a check mark beside it. This should allow you to start deleting emails.

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As of yesterday, no YouTube videos could be played on my iPhone through the built-in YouTube App. As we recently modified settings on the router in our office, we thought it was something on our end. Sure enough, no router adjustment could resolve the issue. We continuously get the “This video could not be played” error message. Others on MacRumors are also reporting the latest YouTube outage on the iPhone. Essentially, no YouTube videos are able to be played through the YouTube App on the iPhone. I am sure Apple and YouTube are aware of this glitch and a fix is just around the corner. In the meantime, there is a temporary solution. Just use the Safari browser (on your iPhone) to view YouTube videos instead. This should allow you to continue enjoying YouTube videos on your iPhone.

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