Friday, December 14, 2007

How To: Turn your iPhone into a Digital Photo Frame

Just before Christmas it's almost impossible to oversee the digital photo frames in the shops. They work like standard photo frames but allow you show slideshows of your pictures and just one.

But did you know, if you own an Apple iPhone (or iPod Touch) you already have a device which you can turn into a photo frame while you are at home? The iPhone comes with a clear, bright and not to small display which makes it perfect to display your photos. There is only one change you will have to do:

  • Just go to Settings, the General and and change the Auto-Lock setting to Never


That's it. It keeps the background light on all the time and doesn't put the phone to sleep. Now you can go to the Photos application and start a slideshow of your photos and there you have the digital photo frame. Of course you will want to put the iPhone into the dock or at least connect the cable to not use your battery.

The nice thing about using the iPhone as a photo frame is the built in internet connection. Means you are not restricted to your own photos on the phone but you can load and display content from the internet. Here are some ideas:

Of course you aren't restricted to photos at all:

  • Display the latest news by running an RSS reader.

  • Don't miss new mails coming in.

  • See world clocks from WorldClockr or countdowns from CountDownr.



This way your iPhone becomes a much better (but of course more expensive) digital photo frames than most devices you can buy today.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea! How do you make the slideshow loop?

Anonymous said...

Nevermind. Found it in Settings->Photos

Anonymous said...

Twitter updates.

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Anonymous said...

Try TapSnaps (www.tapsnaps.com). It lets you run Flickr slide shows on iphone.

Anonymous said...

it's can function like a chumby without having to jailbreak it. Great idea!

Anonymous said...

No need to set the auto-lock to never... the iPhone is smart enough to keep the slide showing going when it is charging in the dock, no matter what the atuo-lock is set to.

Anonymous said...

You are right, the auto-lock setting is not necessary if you want to run offline slideshows, but you will need it for online content.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea. Are there any issues with leaving the screen burning for so long - e.g. overheating/screen wear? Not sure if the iPhone/iTouch can cope with being solidly on for hours at a time?