The latest firmware update for the iPhone and the iPod touch allow you to add direct links to websites to the home screen; you can see a demo of this at Apple's site. It's possible to design custom icons for these sites for these devices to pick up, a bit like a favicon; if no such icon exists on the site's server, the device will create one by taking a snapshot of the webpage, but this usually looks a bit ugly.

Adding custom icons is easy; all you have to do is create a square graphic, save it as a PNG file with the name apple-touch-icon.png and upload it to the root directory of the website. The iPhone will then see it, load it, and apply some effects to it to make it look all glossy and Apple-y. Here's how.

Apple's tech docs suggest creating a square graphic 57x57 pixels in size, but better results seem possible by designing bigger graphics; the iPhone will scale down larger ones anyway. I did MacFormat's at 128x128 pixels, for the vaguely spurious reason that it's the standard size for OS X icons, and so I could always reuse my icon elsewhere.

If you supply an irregularly-shaped image, the iPhone will simply add a black background, so it's worth deliberately creating a flat graphic. A suggestion: create a gradient that goes from a darker, deeper version of your chosen colour at the top to a lighter version at the bottom; when the iPhone adds its gloss to this icon, it will look really rich.

Add your site graphic, remembering that the simpler the better; a slight drop-shadow might help give it some definition. Another tip: leave a more generous margin around your graphic than you might otherwise, or your icons might look a bit crowded by the time it appears on the iPhone.

Finally, upload the apple-touch-icon.png file to the root directory of the website.

Here's the graphic used for MacFormat...

...and a shot of how it looks on the iPhone after it has automatically applied the rounded corners and gloss.

And remember that you can always check what other sites have done with theirs; simply add /apple-touch-icon.png to the main web address to take a peek. Here are a few that I've spotted.

http://m.newsgator.com/apple-touch-icon.png
http://www.apple.com/apple-touch-icon.png
http://iphone.facebook.com/apple-touch-icon.png
http://www.guardian.co.uk/apple-touch-icon.png

Looks like I picked the perfect time to buy an iPhone; O2 has announced that it's improving the call packages for all new and existing packages. The cheapest package – 200 minutes and 200 texts for £35 a month – has just gone up to 600 minutes and 500 texts. All the details of the new tariffs are here, and existing customers can see how the move will affect them here.

So who's buying now?

On Wednesday morning, my shiny new iPhone arrived on my desk. I've been feverishly using it ever since, and the extent of my fever became apparent today when I compared my data usage with MacFormat's editor, Graham.

According to the iPhone (Settings > General > Usage > EDGE Network Data), I've sent 9.1MB and received 60.2MB of data over the cellular network, and that's just since Wednesday morning. Graham, who has had his iPhone since just after its UK launch, has only transferred a total of 38MB. I've therefore used twice what he has, which clearly indicates that I have a problem and should really calm down.

A quick straw poll around the office suggests that yes, I'm an unsually heavy user – great news for me being on O2's unlimited data plans, as otherwise these two days would have cost me a fortune – but I'm curious to know how much of a freak I am.

So let us know how much data you've used if you have an iPhone. There's no way to measuring this against how long you've had the phone, but given that I've used twice as much data in two days than most of my colleagues since the iPhone's UK launch (and before in some cases) I somehow think this is less relevant. So let's go; add the Sent and Received figures from Settings > General > Usage > EDGE Network Data together, and let us know in the forums how much of a data junkie you are.

No, nothing sinister. But I did learn an important fact yesterday: if you don't want people to read the emails you're writing, don't write them on an iPhone.

See, I've just bought one, and had it with me yesterday as I went through to London for the launch of Canon's Spring collection. And everywhere I went, if I was writing an email on the device and there was someone sat next to me, they'd be watching me type in fascination. Sometimes it was a sly sideways glance, sometimes it was an open gawp, and sometimes it was followed by a shy "is that an iPhone?"

And while I was happy to demo it and hopefully convert a few more PC heathens, I just wished it wasn't when I was writing an email to my wife...

For those of you of an inquisitive and/or destructive disposition, Gizmodo has posted a video of a MacBook Air being taken apart. Not sure about the incidental music though - sounds like early Kraftwerk...

***Stop Press*** The video and accompanying pics were removed by lunchtime on Friday 25th at the request of Apple, but Gizmodo is promising to repost once they have their very own MacBook Air.

We've written about Last.FM before in MacFormat. It enabled you to listen to streaming music over the Internet based on bands that were 'like' the music you said you liked. It was quite fun, but frustrating at the same time because you couldn't actually use it to search for a band, then listen to a song of theirs.

Now LastFM has updated its service and done deals with all four major record labels - Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI - as well as CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists, to enable you to search for an artist, then listen to some of their music immediately. It's still streamed, but we're talking full tracks here, not 30 second previews like you get on iTunes.

For the type of music I like it's pretty good: If I want to hear my favourite song in the universe - Everlong by the Foo Fighters then it's no problem. If I want to hear Alive by Pearl Jam? There it is. Cannonball by Damien Rice? Again, no problem - I get the full track to listen to. I can even click straight through to watch videos of Damien performing the song.

Look up some of the more contentious recording artists however, and you'll still be disappointed - look up notorious downloaded music-haters Metallica and you only get previews, The Beatles have obviously only got previews available and it's the same for Led Zeppelin. However, you can still get full tracks for The Rolling Stones.

LastFM also offers a downloadable player for OS X.

It's not perfect - for example. When I go to listen to '3 days' by the glorious Jane's Addiction, I get Just Because instead. Which is still a great song, but not the one it says it is.

So, a few kinks still need ironing out in the system, but it's well worth a look.

Thank Larry for that. It appears Apple isn't sticking its fingers in its ears and going 'LALALALALALA!' after all, at least as far as Leopard is concerned. Of the six things that most irritate me about Mac OS x 10.5 (and I'm not alone in any of these, it seems), BabyGotMac reports that two of them will be fixed in the imminent Mac OS X 10.5.2 update: the translucent menu bar (which reports suggest will become an option within Desktop preferences) and the lack of list-based menus from the Dock (which will make a return in a 'Stacks' option cunningly called 'Lists').

This is the sort of thing that makes me happy, because I'm sad like that, but it also shows that Apple isn't ignoring everyone's bitching. Which is nice. And if you're wondering what the other four things are, two are perfectly user-fixable (the ugly 3D Dock theme, which I've hacked, and am desperately hoping Apple will leave be, and the content of Stacks not being obvious, which can be dealt with using overlays), and two are pretty critical things that are likely to be fixed by Apple ASAP anyway (Mac OS X randomly not being able to connect to a wireless network upon booting/waking, and Finder not being able to unmount volumes).

Now I have to find something else to be grumpy about.

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

A special edition of MacFormat as we review the big news from Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. Deputy Editor Chris Phin and Associate Producer Misha Sakellaropoulo give their thoughts on the highs and lows of the annual Mac show.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

iLife superstar

Use iMovie, GarageBand and iDVD to make the perfect home video

This issue's main feature shows you how to use all the iLife programs to create a professional DVD. Not only do we take you through the process step by step, but we also have buying advice on all the equipment you will need for the project.

MacFormat Editor, Graham Barlow, spent a month with the iPhone. You can find out how he got on with his in-depth diary, plus he makes a wish list for what iPhone 2.0 should have.

We also get a bit nostalgic and take a look back over time to see how Apple's choice of fonts has changed. We look at all the font sets the company has used, from Motter Tektura right up to the one it uses today, Myriad.

Also this issue

Tutorials

Give a portrait a makeover
Share screens in iChat 4.0
Make better use of the Dock
Make Leopard change its spots
Customise your Mac's icons
And more…

Reviews

Apple MacBook 2.2GHz
Wacom Cintiq 12WX
Canon PIXMA MX700
FileMaker Bento
Corel Painter Essentials 4.0
And more…

Mac questions answered
Recovering from a crash, wireless help, hard disk upgrades, problems with Time Machine, backup solutions and more…

On the DVD
Three full programs: ConceptDraw Project 3, PhotoPresenter 2.9.2, Sketsa 2.1 plus shareware, games trials, hot demos and more…

It’s all in MacFormat issue 191, on sale now!

Visit the MacFormat forum by clicking here
Subscribe to MacFormat and never miss an issue again!

Glory be; Microsoft has changed its mind, and this time for the better. While before it forbade you to use all but the most expensive editions of Vista in a virtualisation environment such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion, now, news.com is reporting that you can use any version.

And as you'd expect, the virtualisation companies are delighted about the move. Ben Rudolph, director of corporate communications at SWsoft, Parallels' parent company, said "This move is a good thing for those computer users who aren’t Microsoft customers (like Mac and Linux users) since they now have a cost effective way to access Windows and its massive software library. It also makes it even easier for these traditionally non-Windows users to keep their OS of choice, but still integrate with a Windows-centric office." He also noted that SWsoft was glad to see Microsoft "taking steps to increase the pace of the adoption virtualisation. This shows that Microsoft is committed to the virtualization market, and we think that this opens new opportunities for us to partner."

.... according to Apple Insider.

Here's a trick we see often in this business: work out if your product can in any way be linked to the current marketing success and send out a press release announcing that Product X is a perfect fit with Marketing Success Y. And these days, if you can engineer a link with the iPhone, it's all gravy.

Today though, I got slightly creeped out by one of these stunts. I just got an email from a company offering to download moving 3D images of your foetus – should you be in possession of such a thing – to your iPhone; the email had the subject line "Your unborn baby on your i-Phone [sic]."

And while I can see that this application of some fairly basic technology – it's just adding a movie file to a device designed at least in part for playing movies – is simply another step along the path of carrying photos around in your wallet, you will perhaps forgive me if the phrase "unborn baby" in a press release subject line makes me vaguely uneasy.

If you think I'm just being all male and stupid – and it's quite possible that you'd be entirely right – you can find out more at www.cocoon4d.com.

Get your hands on an iPhone – and Marketcircle’s top software – courtesy of MacFormat

This month, MacFormat has teamed up with Marketcircle, to offer one lucky reader the chance to take home a brand new iPhone, complete with Marketcircle’s powerful Daylite Productivity Suite. Two runners-up will also receive a single-user licenced copy of the software.

Designed for the needs of Mac-based business workgroups of up to 50 people, Daylite Productivity Suite is Marketcircle’s award-winning productivity management software that brings business productivity to the iPhone. From identifying and qualifying opportunities to the delivery of projects, Daylite is a powerful resource for tracking and managing business activities and outcomes via shared calendars, project schedules, meetings, contacts and email. With Daylite Productivity Suite, anyone can delegate appointments – even meetings – and share business contacts between Macs and iPhones or other handheld devices, including the iPod touch.

Daylite recently added more than 300 contextual help articles via Apple Help designed to expose little-known, but powerful Daylite features to more users, and to simplify the getting started process for new users. In addition, more than 100 enhancements, including support for international time zones are offered. A new multi-user trash system enables everyone in a Daylite workgroup to review or re-instate trashed items no matter who deleted them or how. Exporting now includes tab delimited as well as .csv formats, and Daylite ensures powerful offline sync capabilities as well. With Daylite you can work where you want, when you want. For more, information, go to www.marketcircle.com.

How to enter
For your chance to win one of the three prizes in this competition, simply click here . Competition closes 5 February.

Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC Future Media And Technology, has hinted in his blog that we could see the BBC partnering with Apple now that iTunes supports movie rentals to get the BBC iPlayer "onto this platform too". That would be great, but I worry he's just thinking out loud, and that they've not even entered into talks about this...

From Steve Jobs’ recent Keynote performance at Macworld I think Apple’s obsession with ever-thinner Macs and iPods seems to have transferred to Apple’s mercurial CEO himself. He was looking scrawnier than we’ve ever seen him before as he announced Apple’s (and the world’s) thinnest ever laptop – the new MacBook Air.

Jobs might have looked a little on the slender side, but he certainly wasn’t frail – strutting the boards with the confidence and self assuredness of a CEO still at the top of his game, joking with the crowd, getting excited about the technology and casually introducing the CEO’s of Intel and 20th Centaury Fox to join him on stage, but never letting them steal the limelight.

As keynotes go it was an average one. It was always going to be impossible for Jobs to top the excitement of last year’s iPhone, but all the elements of a decent keynote were there. We got a nice new gadget – Time Capsule for doing wireless Time Machine backups, Apple pushed the boundaries again with iTunes and movie rentals (although we have to wait until some time in 2008 to get those in the UK), some amazing free upgrades – Apple TV and iPhone, and one paid-for update – the iPod touch. And finally we had the essential must-have Apple product – the MacBook Air - to fill the ‘One more thing...’ slot, even if he didn’t actually announce it with his customary ‘One more thing…’ intro.

There was no new software to talk of and iPod owners may have been disappointed that there weren’t any new designs on offer, but they’ve been more than spoiled in recent months.

Let us know what you thought of the new products and the Keynote in the comments section below.