From The Tips Box: iPhone Maps, Tweetie, Password Changes

Readers offer their best tips for using Maps on the iPhone, unlocking hidden features in Twitter for Mac, and changing your passwords.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons — maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in—the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Email it to tips at lifehacker.com.au.

Two-Finger Tap in Maps to Zoom Out

N B shares a quick but useful multitouch gesture for Maps in iOS:

My friend found this in iOS developer documentation. This effect is called multi touch events. You might know this from rotating/zooming pictures or zooming webpages using two fingers.

In Google Maps on iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) when you double tap it “zooms in” but to “zoom out” you can single tap using 2 fingers. This will zoom out the map.

MacHeist Users Get Secret Features in the Mac App Store’s Twitter App

Oshioshi tells us a secret Easter egg in the new Twitter app for OS X, for those that purchased the last MacHeist bundle:

If you happen to have purchased Tweetie in the MacHeist Bundle, then all you have to do is press CTRL+ALT+CMD in the new Twitter app’s help menu and enter your Tweetie serial number. This will unlock secret functionality and also entitles you to pre-release upgrades.

Re-Program Your Smartphone After Changing Passwords

Virgilstar reminds us to inform our phones of password changes:

When changing your email password, remember to re-program your smartphone settings immediately.

I reset all my passwords yesterday, but forgot to edit the email login credentials on my iPhone. The phone spent all night pinging the server with an incorrect password, so this morning when I tried to login at my desktop, my account was locked down.

Keep Coffee Lids Off Public Counters with the Stirring Stick

Photo by Peter-Ashley Jackson.

Slowcarb4life shows us germophobes a way to keep our coffee lid off of Starbucks’ counters:

To keep your coffee lid off the nasty counter at the local coffee shop (without waisting a napkin): insert the stir stick into the cup through the sip hole, remove the lid and let it hang down from the stir stick to the side of the cup, insert desired ingredients, grab lid with free hand, stir, remove stick, replace lid and enjoy.