The new Sonos[iTunes Link] Controller for iPhone app has really got me thinking about all the cool things we are going to be able to do with the iPhone. I’ve compiled this list of things you can manipulate with your iPhone.

Controlling your Car

Delphi has come up with a really cool app that lets your lock and unlock your car, power automatic doors, and even remote start your car.  Although it is just a concept, it was demo’d at CES 2008 working with a GMC Acadia vehicle.  It works with a blue-tooth enabled key fob that can work from up to a mile a way. This software also allows users to monitor and control several aspect’s of a vehicle’s system, including temperature, tire pressure, gas levels, oil levels, and can detect break ins.

Controlling What You Watch on TV

I already wrote about controlling your DirecTV DVR to setup recordings, but you can also control Tivo interface.

Believe it or not, You Can Use Your iPhone to Fly an Aircraft

The clever folks at UC Berkeley have developed a system to issue commands to unmanned aerial vehicles using a device we all know and love: the iPhone.

While the iPhone is specifically restricted from piloting the drones themselves, the team uses Mobile Safari on the iPhone to enter coordinates and select tasks for its airborne fleet. A web server then relays the tasks to the aircraft mid-flight.

The video shows, in real time, an exercise where a remote-controlled airplane is instructed to photograph a particular area underneath it. The photo is then transmitted wirelessly back to a workstation at ground control.

Controlling Your Home

There have been several different home automation applications for the iPhone.  iPhone Home Controller lets an iPhone User set up a home automation scheme using x10 automation hardware and a Safari/iPhone/iTouch optimized web interface controller.  Crestons Home Automation iPhone Application elegantly enables wired home owners to control lighting, temperature and all sorts of other things via WiFi or 3G, at home or anywhere else in the world. Users can even program in settings for multiple houses, enabling them to turn the AC on in Orlando while blasting the heat in Jackson Hole. You can get the source code for a home grown X-10 iPhone app as well.

Controlling your Bathomatic Bubble Bath Tub

You can even regulate the bubbles in your whirlpool tub with an iPhone.  Now that is luxury.

Controlling a Radio Controlled Car

A guy having fun figured out how to use the iPhone to control his RC Car. He set up an interface and leveraged the accelerometer to steer it.

Controlling your Music At Home

Sonos is a wireless digital music player that plays digital music files from your PC or networked hard drive anywhere in the home. The Sonos Controller for iPhone™ is a free application that turns your iPhone (or iPod® touch) into a full-fledged Sonos Controller. I am really excited because I have been eyeing their system for years but didn’t want to spend the $900. Their new iPhone app will let me buy just the ZonePlayer Base and I can use our iPhones and iTouches to control it around the house.

Remote, the well known free Apple app that lets you control iTunes and pipe music throughout your house. I described how to do this here.

Controlling your Music Jam

There are iPhone Applications that use your iPhone / iTouch touch as new generation midi controller for your favorite audio DAW or VJ performance tool.  iTM MCU [iTunes Link] is the latest iTM release Mackie Control Emulation for your iPhone or iPod touch ITMMidi [iTunes Link]. ProRemote [iTunes Link] is a product that runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch that uses your existing wireless network to control professional audio products such as Digidesign’s ProTools and Apple’s Logic Music production systems.These apps free you up so that you can sit at your instrument and make changes to your setup without stopping and walking across the room every few minutes.

Control Your Computer

There are several apps that let you remotely control your home or work computer with your iPhone. Jaadu VNC [iTunes Link], formerly known as Touchpad Pro, lets you wirelessly control your PC or Mac through your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can use it to advance slides in a presentation, control your media center, check e-mail — whatever a regular touchpad and keyboard can do. It’s got various features that you really have to see to believe. With ScreenView, you can now see what’s happening on your screen and control your computer even if you’re miles away. Watch the video to learn more!  It is a bit pricey at $24.99 but a lot more expensive that one of these presentation remote controllers they sell in office supply shops.  Also available in the App Store are Mocha VNC, and Mocha VNC lite. If you’ve jailbroken your phone, you can use Cydia to get Veency, a very robust useful VNC application to reverse this, i.e., control and view your iPhone from your computer.

Controlling your Digital Picture Frames

Now that Wifi digital picture frames are becoming more available, I expect to see more of this, but right now I could only find one company that let you do this:  Control your digital picture frame with your iPhone. eStarling frames lets you use the application by SeeFrame [iTunes Link], to send photos from your iPhone to wifi connected picture frames.

Keyboard

Slide to the Right Letter

I know that most people have figured this one out, but to be complete, and for Newbies, I thought it would be good to add this.  When you press on a key and you hit the wrong letter, simply slide your finger to the right letter (without lifting it) and lift up to correct your mistake.

Slide to Period Tapping

Instead of switching between letter and punctuation modes, slide your finger to the @123 button, but don’t release it until after sliding and releasing over the period key. The keyboard will switch back to letter input automatically. This makes a big difference. Be sure to measure the improvement of the slide method on your typing speed. This is also known as the McCallum method via Pogue. An otherwise, well documented shortcut, but addresses a very common complaint about the iPhone keyboard.

Misspelling Contractions

You can intentionally spell it’s incorrectly as “itsp” or “itsa” and “it’s” will be suggested. The A and P keys are ideally positioned for this kind of a shortcut. To get popular contractions filled in automatically just add a third repetitive letter to get Safari to suggest the contraction word. Examples include “helll” -> “he’ll” , “welll” -> “we’ll”, “weree” -> “we’re” etc.

Keyboard Switching

Press the space bar from the .123 keyboard to return to the alpha keyboard. This can be good when you just need a number or a period. If you have the iPhone 1.1.1 update you can simply double-tap the space key to get a period.

Automating Other URL Suffixes

On the keyboard press and hold the .com key to see other tld extensions based on your selected languages. For example in the U.S. you will see .net, .edu .org, with German you will see .edu .org .de, and with Spanish you will see .edu .org and .es in a pop up list.

Don’t Even Bother Typing .COM

Just like a real browser, it appears that the iPhone will allow you to type in most .com URLs without having to type the actual .com or pressing the button. Simply press Go after typing the site name and iPhone’s Safari browser should automatically insert the .com for you.

Magnifying Glass

When typing in an email message, URL, web page text box, or any other item that requires the keyboard, you may make a spelling error. To fix any errors that aren’t at the tail end of the string you just typed, hold your finger over the text until a small magnifying glass appears. You will now be able to position the cursor at the proper location in order to make your change.

Best Buy just reduced the price of this kit from $99.99 to $49.99. According to the ad it is compatible with:

Compatible with iPod, iPod nano, iPod mini, iPod shuffle, iPod with color display, iPod photo, iPod video, iPod classic, iPod touch and iPhone

Note:  This works for Audio out for the iPhone and iTouch but doesn’t support Video out.

It includes an A/V Cable, universal dock, dock adapters, remote, and USB Power Adapter.

I was looking at a TV Guide app in the store the other day and I thought it was pretty cool, but because I am a DirecTV customer, it is often difficult to find TV Guides that are not aligned with zip codes but with Satellite Regions.

I remembered that the DirecTV page posted a great guide. So I tried to navigate to there page with my iPhone. I could see the page, but it wasn’t formatted for the iPhone so it was really difficult to navigate. After a little bit more research I did identify a DirecTV mobile phone page that seems to work well on the iPhone.

This web app doesn’t let you browse the DirecTV Guide, but it does allow you to do something even cooler. You can use this site to search and setup your DirecTV DVR to record shows remotely. You can also sign up to see Pay Per View shows and set up series.  If you have more than one DVR, it lets you pick which ones to use to record a show.

This is a really cool feature because if you are away from home and you hear about a show you want to record you can now use this page and your iPhone to set it up remotely.

If you have a DVR, just go to the DirecTV.com page and create an account. Then navigate to the mobile compatible page and login.

It has a very basic menu, but pretty much lets me do what i wanted. It has “Search For Shows”, and a “Manual Record” feature. No guide, but search is pretty useful.

The Search for Shows feature lets you enter a search string. It display a list of matching shows. Pick one, and it gives you a description and the option to “Record Once”, “Record the Series”, or see more show times. I have multiple receiver, so when i pick “record”, I get a list of receivers. Once i pick the receiver, i can give it a recording priority. Since I can’t see the list of what is already set up, I can say “record if possible” or “Definitely Record this”.

The Manual Record feature lets you pick a channel, date, time, duration to record just like recording on your old faithful VCR. This is usually only useful when the guide data is not accurate, but neat to have.

Also, I had high hopes for the login part, because the sign in form has a “Remember Me” checkbox, but it doesn’t seem to work. Each time I go to the web page, I have to enter it from scratch.