Get thinner, get stronger, get faster, get healthier with iMore and Mobile Nations in February!

New Years is over, January has come and gone, and for many of us, our get fit and get healthy resolutions have come and gone with it. Rather than leaving them lying in ruin with what’s left of our waist lines and good intentions, however, we want to do something about it. And we want you to do something about it with us!

Whether CrackBerry challenged Android Central, WPCentral threw down the gauntlet on webOS Nation, or iMore called them all out, who remembers? The important thing is this — we’re using February to get off our collective apps and get into shape.

Think about it — mobile is where it’s increasingly at for health and fitness. Our iPhone go everywhere we go and are the perfect way to record everything from our activity to our diet to our sleep cycles. And our iPads let us look at all that data on a bigger screen and really see where we are and where we need to be. Mobile has become lifestyle.

So… Want to eat better? iMore is with you! Want to get stronger? We’re spotting! Want to get into better cardio shape? We’re so there!

Each week we’re each going to set reasonable, attainable goals, and each week we’re going to take advantage of our awesome community to make sure we attain them. We’re going to have special editions of our ZEN and TECH and Superfunctional podcasts to help us get going and stay going, and we’re going to use our brand new Health and Fitness Forum to keep us focused, keep us accountable, and keep us keeping on!

Oh, and you could win an iPad 3!

You, the iMore Nation, are our motivation. And to keep you motivated, we have some great prizes lined up. Anyone and everyone who participates, who shares their goals and keeps us up-to-date with their regular progress will be automatically entered to into our:

• Weekly drawings for an iPod nano. We’re giving away 4 total, one each week!
• Grand prize drawing for an iPad 3 IOU! (You’ll get it when Apple launches it!)

There will also be some great app and accessory giveaways along the way to keep everyone on their toes.

Sound good? Sound great? Sound like you just can’t wait to get fit? Good! Jump into our new Health and Fitness Forum now and pick your goal for week 1.

Mobile Nations fitness month has begun!

Poor battery life and iPhone are a few words that get mixed together all too often it seems. While some will say it’s fine, others will say it’s pitiful. As many of you know, battery life will fluctuate greatly between users and their individual usage patterns but TiPb wants to provide you with some simple tips and tricks on conditioning your battery to provide a maximum life and squeezing as much usage out of each charge as possible.

The battery in an iPhone is a lithium-based battery which is most common in consumer portable devices. A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles in its lifetime and the following tips are just a few ways to efficiently gain longer battery lifespans while extending overall battery life of your iPhone.

• Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).
• Avoid heat – do not leave your iPhone in a hot car or in direct sunlight.
• Optimization of your settings. Yes, some of these are no brainers but can be effective. Simple things like:
  1. turning off Location Services,
  2. turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when not in use,
  3. fetching new data less frequently,
  4. setting the brightness of your screen below 50%,
  5. turning of the EQ while listening to music,
  6. turning off 3G while not surfing the internet (Yes, we said it…)

All of these add up to better battery life.

After you’ve tried some of the above tips and you are still not happy or your battery life is just horrid all together, you may want to try restoring your iPhone and do not restore from a backup file but rather restore as a new iPhone. All too often we hear about horrible battery life striking many of you after updating your iPhone to the latest software. If this is the case, 9 times out of 10 a separate restore as a new iPhone will clear up your battery issue.

Have some battery saving tips you’d like to share? Leave them in the comments for others to take advantage of!