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Friday 31 May 2013

Customise iPhone app icons without jailbreaking by using this webapp(source--iphonehacks)



toolsiphone-1
If you’re a fan of changing the look of your iPhone’s home screen, but don’t want to or can’t jailbreak it, tooliphone.net is a great webapp that lets you set icons of your own choice for your favorite apps.

It does this by creating webclips with URL schemes for apps instead of the usual http link, a technique we’ve covered here before. However, the web app packages the whole process into a neat tool called “iCustom,” not requiring a PC or Mac.
When you visit tooliphone.net on your iOS device, you’ll see a webpage telling you to choose either between a blank or a custom icon. Once you select “custom icon”, you choose which app icon you’d like to customise from a pre-defined list. One cool thing is that you can not only create icons for apps, but also make icons for actions like calling, texting or emailing.
You then proceed to enter the image, which can either be in the form of a URL (hard to extract from mobile Safari) or an image uploaded from your device, which sadly didn’t work for us. Once you’re done with all these steps, you’d finally be told to add the page as a bookmark on your homescreen. Since the icon is actually a bookmarklet, it’ll redirect you to the chosen app, and not straight out replace the icon like WinterBoard themes.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

AltKeyboard: Upcoming tweak to let you type alternate characters by swiping up on keys(source--iphonehacks)



altkeyboard
AltKeyboard is an upcoming jailbreak tweak that will let users type alternate characters on the keyboard by swiping up on the keys so you don’t have to keep switching between keyboards to enter numbers, and some punctuations and symbols on your iPhone.
The jailbreak tweak is being developed by Newar (@Sentry_NC) and Alan (@tweakcc) of the Auxo fame.
It seems like another cool tweak by the Auxo developers and kind-of reminds me of the Blackberry 10keyboard/Octopus Keyboard tweak(though in case of the BlackBerry 10 Keyboard it allows you to select suggested words by swipin up on top of the keys).
There is no firm release date, but the developers have indicated that it will be available on Cydia anytime soon. We’ll let you know as soon as it is available on Cydia.

Volume Amplifier boosts your iPhone’s volume all the way upto 200%


A new tweak on Cydia called Volume Amplifier boosts the iPhone speaker’s volume by 200 percent, which can come in handy when talking to someone on the phone and the voice on the opposite end isn’t audible.

Volume Amplifier directly manipulates the audio stream rather than messing around with system config files, and hence works similarly with the earpiece, the speaker as well as headphones. Strangely, the tweak is only compatible with the iPhone 5 and works only with phone calls.
While you’re on a call you can simply use the the volume up/down buttons like you normally would, except that you’ll notice a new overlay and that the volume goes beyond 100 percent.

Monday 27 May 2013

MiniPlayer 2.2 adds seek bar and search feature to the awesome music widget


The developers have now added the scrubber/seek bar and a search feature in MiniPlayer 2.2, which I was hoping for and had briefly mentioned in the post.
The scrubber bar allows you to skip to any point in a song, whereas you can search for songs in your Music library directly from the custom widget.
miniplayer0
The new seek bar in MiniPlayer 2.2
miniplayer3
The new search feature
Those were the two missing features from iTunes mini player, so it is great to see the developers have added the features.
MiniPlayer is available for $2.0 on Cydia. If you had purchased PowerMusic MiniPlayer then you can upgrade to MiniPlayer 2.x for just $1.0.
If you listen to music on your iOS device, then this is a must-have jailbreak tweak. If they could figure out a way to bring iTunes 11′s “Up Next” functionality then it would be even more awesome, though I think it is too much to ask as the “Up Next” feature isn’t available even in the Music app.
Let us know what you think of the tweak in the comments.

Background Manager: Jailbreak tweak brings real multitasking to iOS 6


When Apple introduced the multitasking feature in iOS 4, it enabled multitasking support only for certain types of apps due to concerns over the adverse impact it could have on battery life.

So if you wanted true multitasking on your iOS device, you had to jailbreak your device to install Backgrounder. It gave you the control to decide when an app should keep running and when it should quit.
Unfortunately, Backgrounder is currently not compatible with iOS 6.x and based on the message on Cydia, it seems highly unlikely it will be updated with iOS 6.x support in the near future.
But a new jailbreak called Background Manager aims to fill the void, it promises to finally bring the backgrounder functionality to iOS 6.x.
The jailbreak tweak allows you to enable backgrounding or true multitasking across all apps or enable it for an app via the Settings app.
You have the option to select between three background modes: None, Background and Native. By default the background mode is set to Native. If you change it to Background to enable multitasking or to allow the app to run the background as if it was running in the foreground. When you select Background, it also offers toggles to enable disable Fallback to Native andForce Native mode. Unfortunately, due to lack of any documentation, I couldn’t figure out what it meant. They are enabled by default so I left them as it is.
bm
If you want to enable backgrounding at an app level then launch the Settings app and navigate to Background Manager -> Each app -> tap on Add Item and select the app from the list. After selecting the app, tap on it and then select the Background mode. The app also allows you to launch an app when you boot your iPhone and relaunch the app if it exited for any particular reason.
I tested the tweak by enabling the Background mode with the Dropbox app and it seems to work as advertised and uploaded a large file in the background without interruption. It also worked well with Cydia, so it doesn’t load the package list every time you launch the app and you don’t see the Loading… splash screen.
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It is recommended that you enable backgrounding at an app level rather than across all apps to avoid adversely impacting battery life.
Here’s the demo video of the tweak in the action below:

Background Manager is available on Cydia for $0.99. You can download it using this direct link (link works only on jailbroken device) from Cydia.
Please note that that backgrounding is disabled by default, so you need to enable it for the tweak to work after installing it.
Let us know what has been your experience with the tweak in the comments. Does it work as you expected?

Badger lets you preview notifications from your iPhone’s Home screen


badger1
Badger, a jailbreak tweak released a few days ago, lets you view a list of unread notifications by simply swiping an app’s icon while you’re on the home screen. Its core functionality, including the activation method and the basic interface is very similar to Velox, another jailbreak tweak we’ve covered earlier.

When you activate Badger using the activation method — by default a swipe-up on an app icon — it shows you a popup with a list of all your unread notifications. These notifications can be dismissed by a simple horizontal swipe, or can be tapped on to take further action. For the Messages.app, there’s also an option to quickly reply to incoming messages. If a notification in the popup exceeds viewing limits, you can tap on it to initiate the scroller, though ideally we’d have wanted the font size to be smaller.
The tweak is compatible withAbstergo, can be fully themed, and works with devices running iOS 5 and up.
Although we pointed out the similarity between Badger and Velox, the developer notes that the two tweaks “are not competitors” and “are designed to perform different functions and get along nicely.”
Badger is available on Cydia for $0.99. Let us know what you think of the tweak in the comments below. Which one do you prefer, Badger or Velox?

Saturday 25 May 2013

Fantastical a new best Cydia tweak to replace your stock iPhone or iPad calendar


The built-in Calendar app on iOS does its job pretty well, but if you feel like having a change there are plenty of options out there. One of these is Fantastical. This app gives a simpler interface than the built-in app but doesn’t skimp on functionality. Read on to find out more.
fastical(1)
Upon first launching Fantastical, you are greeted by a tutorial that shows you how to get around the app with touch gestures. This is something I look out for in all apps because as more app rely on gestures rather than virtual buttons, the user interface becomes invisible – while this is convenient it can also make things inaccessible without a tutorial.
fastical(2)
If you’ve used Fantastical on the Mac, then you’ll glad to know that Fantastical’s powerful natural language parser has been ported to the iPhone. This means that you can say things like “Meet John tomorrow at 7 pm” and the app will automagically create a calendar event with the appropriate date and time, without having to go through the hassle of setting the date and time separately. The animations are also pretty cool, just like the Mac app, the words fly down from the entry field to the Calendar.
Before we go any further in this review, there’s something we should get out of the way. Fantastical does not have a day-view, whereas the built-in Calendar does. Fantastical probably isn’t for you if you rely on that mode. However, keep reading if you are an agenda-view junkie!
fastical(3)
When you launch the app it displays a scrollable horizontal menu, which Fantastical calls the DayTicker instead of the standard monthly calendar.
There are two primary panes in Fantastical. The lower and larger section gives a vertically scrolling list of your Calendar entries. The upper section scrolls horizontally – by default it shows a list of days which coloured bars to indicate the quantity of appointments. However, drag this section down slightly and you’ll reveal a search box, drag it down even further, and the section extends to show a month calendar. Swiping sideways moves from month to month.
You’ll find as you scroll through the agenda list that your position in the upper view (either days or month) will adjust accordingly. The reverse is true too; you can use the upper section to move quickly through the agenda view.
fastical(4)
Fantastical has full access to all the calendars added to your device, which means iCloud, Google, Exchange Active Sync, etc.
fastical(5)
An area in which Fantastical’s search interface surpasses the built-in Calendar app. Searching in the latter, automatically searches all event fields. However, Fantastical lets you search by title, location, invitees, or all fields. Those tabs allow you to be more specific than the built-in app. Search results come through in (what feels like) real time.
fastical(6)
A nice touch with Fantastical is that you can set its icon badge to either display the current date or the number of remaining appointments for the day. This is a neat touch and shows the developers are doing their best to match the privileges that the built-in Calendar has. I.e. Changing the icon every day to reflect the date.
fastical(7)
One of the limitations of Fantastical and any other third-party calendar app, through no faults of their own, is that calendar alerts from iOS launch the stock Calendar app rather than Fantastical. There is also no landscape mode or week view.
Fantastical costs $4.99 / £2.99 in the iTunes App store [Download]. It’s on the expensive side, but the natural language parser makes it worth every penny.
Examine the screenshots, because what you see is what you get with this app, which I think is a good thing in this case.
fastical(8)

Friday 24 May 2013

Cheap iPad--Apple has quietly dropped prices of all refurbished iPad


new-ipad-retina-display
Apple has quietly dropped prices of all refurbished iPad 4 and iPad mini variants on its online store. Refurb iPad minimodels now start at $279 while refurbiPad 4 models start at $419.

iPad mini
  • 16GB Wi-Fi: $299 -> $279
  • 32GB Wi-Fi: $389 -> $359
  • 64GB Wi-Fi: $489 -> $439
  • 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $429 -> $389
  • 32GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $519 -> $469
  • 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $619 -> $549
iPad 4
  • 16GB Wi-Fi: $449 -> $419
  • 32GB Wi-Fi: $549 -> $499
  • 64GB Wi-Fi: $649 -> $579
  • 16GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $579 -> $529
  • 32GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $679 -> $609
  • 64GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $779 -> $689
Refurb models now amount to a discount of at least 15 percent on the original price of iPads, and come with a 1 year warranty. Apple notes that all refurb units are tested and certified, and each unit ships with a new battery and outer shell. You can order refurb iPad minis from here, and refurb iPad 4s from here.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Trunk: A versatile Lightning cable for your iPhone 5(source--iphonehacks)



trunk-lightning-charging-cable
If you’re frustrated with tangled cables of your iPhone’s Lightning to USB connector, then Gizmodo points us to a cool new accessory called Trunk by iLoveHandles.
Trunk is a short, posable Lightning charging cable for your iPhone 5, which can be bent and used as a stand for the device. It’s also ultra-protable. It’s so small that you can straigten it out and put it in your pocket.
Trunk’s reinforced core can actually support your iPhone 5 in almost any position, letting you more easily use it as a navigation device in your car, or just keeping it off the floor while it’s charging from an outlet. Just make sure you’re ok with only four or five inches of slack.
It reminds me of Twig, the ultra-portable cable for the iPhone, which comes with a bendable wire skeleton and three legs that allowed you to use it as a tripod stand for the iPhone. It also could be used to wrapper for your EarPods’ cord.
Trunk is available on iLoveHandles website for $19.95.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

To-do app Checkmark, Units, Ninja Slash free on App Store(source--iphonehacks)


Popular to-do app Checkmark, usually priced $4.99, has gone free today on the App Store along with Units, a unit converter, and Ninja Slash, a 4.5 star rated game.

checkmark ios
Checkmark: Checkmark is an excellent to-do app that takes the stock Reminders app one-step further. The app lets you set favourite locations, create reminders based on these locations including those that fire a specified time after you reach a certain location. It also lets you set time based reminders. You can download Checkmark from this link.
units iphone
Units: Units is a unit converter for the iPhone that sadly isn’t updated for the iPhone 5. It however is a great app for older devices, and has a rating of 4 stars. The developer notes that version 2.0 is coming soon, and till then version 1 of the app will remain free. You can download Units from this link.
ninja slash ios
Ninja Slash: Ninja Slash is a Temple Run like runner game where you play the role of a ninja who runs through the streets, “slashing” zombies and avoiding obstacles. $0.99 usually, the game is a universal binary and can be downloaded from this link.

QuickGestures brings Android-style gestures to iPhone’s Contacts and Phone app (source--iphonehacks)


QuickGestures is a new jailbreak tweak that brings Android-style gestures to the Contact lists in the Phone and Contacts app.
It adds the following gestures to iPhone’s Contact and Phone app:
  • Swiping from right to left on a contact in the Contact list initiates a call. If there is more than one number then it will prompt you to select the number to call.
  • Swiping from left to right on a contact launches iMessage (or Quick compose sheet if you’ve biteSMS installed). If there is more than one number then it will prompt you to select the number to send the iMessage or SMS to.
  • To send a new email to a contact long press on the contact.
You can customize the tweak via the Settings app. It allows you to reassign the gestures and also disable them.
quickgestures
As a bonus it also allows you to hide section headers and hide the Search bar from the Contact list, which seem unnecessary as I can’t figure out why anyone would want to do it.
You can check out the video walkthrough of the tweak below.

The tweak works exactly as advertised and it ends up saving you a few taps. If you prefer gesture driven UI then you should like this tweak.
QuickGestures is available on Cydia for $0.99. As always, let us know what you think in the comments.

Sunday 19 May 2013

New Apple Television concept features Siri integration, intuitive Interface and more(source--iphonehacks)


A new Apple TV concept video takes a guess at how the next Apple TV or the much rumored full-blown Apple Television might look like. It takes the existing UI and adds a number of additional features to it, including Siri, Live TV and use iOS devices like iPad mini as a remote.

The live TV component of the concept would obviously mean Apple has to partner with a cable operator, taking the content and overlaying it with their own UI. The concept envisions a fairly simple and intuitive interface for the live TV — users can change channels by swiping horizontally across the iPad screen, see programming information by tapping anywhere on the screen, and of course control everything using Siri.
Here’s the video:

Tell us what you think about the concept in the comments below.

Apple pulls Bang With Friends from the App Store



bang-with-frends
Bang With Friends, a service that let users hookup with their Facebook friends, debuted on iOS earlier this month. However, just 10 days later, Apple has removed the app from the App Store.

The removal was confirmed by CEO Colin Hodge, who told ValleyWag:
Cofounder and CEO Colin Hodge told Valleywag that he’s working with Apple to get the app, which recently crossed the million user mark, back in the iPhone’s warm embrace.
[…]
Apple did not immediately responded to questions about why Bang with Friends was banned. “We are waiting to hear more from Apple as to why,” said Hodge.
While it’s not surprising that Bang With Friends was booted out from the App Store, we wonder how the app got an approval in the first place, given the nature of the service. Is Apple rectifying this mistake 10 days later only because the service became popular, or did the app violate an App Store guideline after it was approved? (One reason why the app might now have raised alarms at first was that it was named “BWF” and not “Bang With Friends.”)
Bang With Friends got popular due to their promise of “Your friends will never know you’re interested unless they are too!”  The Android app remains live on the Play Store, and there’s of course a website for the service.

Saturday 18 May 2013

How to use Siri to generate strong, unique passwords(source--iphonehacks)


Coming up with unique passwords all the time can be a struggle with you’re supposed to be doing a hundred and one other things. If only Siri, your in-phone digital assistant, could help. Fortunately, it can. As you may already know, Siri takes many of its answers from the Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, and that includes generating random passwords.

There are several password-generating-apps on iOS – search iTunes for “password generator”. My personal recommendation would be LastPass as this gives management and secure notes, in addition to password generation.
siripasswords(1)
However, if you only want a simple solution there’s no need to install anything. Simple say to Siri, “random password” or “generate password” (both work) and it will come back to you with a password, accompanied by many more details from Wolfram Alpha.
You’ll find that the password is translated into a phonetic alphabet; e.g. “sierra” for s, “foxtrot” for f, etc. Below that Siri, courtesy of Wolfram Alpha, provides a group of additional passwords.
siripasswords(2)
If you’re wondering how strong your password is, the next section gives details on how long it would take to break the password (i.e. enumerate), how many passwords exist within the length and character set used, and how much entropy the password has. Science alert – Entropy is a measure of chaos. The password’s strength is judged by how chaotic (i.e. random) it is.
If after looking at the password’s statistics, you decide you want more strength, scrolling down a little further will reveal more passwords made from larger sets of characters. The more characters a password might have makes it even harder to guess.
siripasswords(3)
After all of that, if you want an even stronger password (really?!), you can make Siri give you an even longer password than the default eight characters. For example if you want a 16 character password, just say “Random password 16 characters”, and Siri will comply. As you do, note how the entropy value increases.
Obviously you can give Siri any number for a password length – in my somewhat pedantic testing I found that the limit of characters was 300. Far more than you’d ever want to enter into your Facebook account!
siripasswords(4)
The great problem with this method is that there’s no way to copy and paste the generated passwords from Siri’s output into your applications. This means you’ll need to write down or memorize the password which isn’t all that convenient. It’s with that in mind that we recommend you stick with something like LastPass.
Credit to OSXDaily for this Siri tip.
Categories: How ToSiri

Apple may not be able to launch iRadio music streaming service due to licensing issues(source--iphonehacks)



iradio
Google just launched Google Play All Access music subscription service at the I/O conference earlier this week, and Apple’s widely expected to follow with the launch of the much rumoured “iRadio” streaming service in June at WWDC.

However, Apple is finding it hard to convince music labels to agree to its unconventional licensing model, which could potentially delay a WWDC launch.
Unlike players like Spotify, Rdio and more recently Google, Apple’s streaming model will be different, according to The Verge:
Google chose to offer a standard subscription music service very similar to those built by Spotify and Rdio, and that meant the terms had largely been established, according to multiple sources close to the talks. Apple, on the other hand, is pioneering a hybrid web and radio service — one that resembles Pandora but melds it with some on-demand features, the sources said. The licensing agreement had to be created from scratch.
Google was also open to paying music labels in advance, while Apple is known to not offer advance payments. Apple’s has however agreed to give record labels a cut from the ads iRadio will reportedly show, a per-play fee and a minimum guarantee.
While Apple has Universal and Warner Music on-board for iRadio, Sony/ATV and BMG remain unconvinced, and Apple’s Internet services team, led by Eddy Cue, would have to pull a miracle to get them ready by next month, in time for WWDC.

Gameloft’s Gangstar Rio, N.O.V.A 3 and ZeptoLab’s Pudding Monsters currently free on App Store(source--iphonehacks)


Two popular iOS gaming titles by Gameloft, Gangstar Rio and N.O.V.A 3, and Pudding Monsters by ZeptoLab of Cut the Rope fame are currently free on the App Store.

nova 3
“N.O.V.A. 3 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance” is a sci-fi first person shooter game where your goal is to fight for mankind’s survival by fighting enemies on a war-torn Earth. The game is universal, that is, it runs on both the iPhone and the iPad, and was priced at $6.99 earlier. It’s a heavy 1.69GB download and requires iPhone 3GS and up, iPod touch 3rd gen and up or any iPad running iOS 4.3 or later. You can download the game from this link.

gangster
“Gangstar Rio: City of Saints” is a third-person shooter game based in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. You play the role of a gangster, taking him through 60 varied missions using a variety of weapons and vehicles. The game, priced at $4.99 earlier, is an 878MB download requiring iPhone 3GS and up, iPod touch 3rd gen and up or any iPad running iOS 4.3 or later. You can download the app from this link.

pudding monsters
Pudding Monsters is a puzzle game by the folks at ZeptoLab best known for their popular title Cut the Rope. The gameplay revolves around sticking together multiple “pudding monsters” to save them from the fridge-owner, where they reside. The game is available as separate versions for the iPhone and iPad, and both those versions have gone free as a part of Apple’s free app of the week promotion. Pudding Monsters, earlier $1.99, can be downloaded for free for the iPhone using this link, and for the iPad using this link.

Friday 17 May 2013

Semi-Restore: Upcoming tool claims to let you restore the device to a fresh version of iOS without losing jailbreak(source--iphonehacks)


Ever since Apple released iOS 6.1.3 and then iOS 6.1.4 (for iPhone 5), users who have a jailbroken iOS device have to be careful when they install tweaks to ensure it doesn’t mess up the device forcing them to restore their device. This would in turn mean that they would also lose the jailbreak.
So I was a little intrigued when one of the readers (thanks Alan!) sent me a link about a tool called Semi-Restore. The developer @Coolstar claims that the Semi-Restore tool will let you restore the device to a fresh version of iOS without losing your jailbreak.
It tool will be available for Mac, Windows and Linux users. There is also a SSH version in the works. It is supposed to work with iOS 5.0 to iOS 6.1.2.
The developer notes that the tool has the following requirements:
  • 5-10 minutes of your time!
  • A computer running Windows or Mac OS X
  • OpenSSH and APT 0.7 Strict (NOT THE LIB) installed on your device
  • An SSH client on your computer (USB version coming soon)
Semi-Restore website also highlights the following important points about the tool:
  • There may be a better way to fix your current problem. For example, to fix “Safe Mode” issues, you can just uninstall Mobile Substrate from Cydia.
  • Like any other restore, make sure you backup your data if you want it later.
  • Avoid using your iOS device or anything related to iTunes or XCode. Why not actually go outside?
  • This process can not and does not repair broken system files! Avoid all Siri Ports, as they are not only illegal (except for Spire on 5.0.1) but they also create problems and may potentially break system files (even Spire can cause this).
  • Your device will respring several times during the semi-restore. This is perfectly normal, so don’t panic.
The developer has also released the following screenshot of the tool:
semirestore_windows
I was a little skeptical about it as I haven’t heard about the developer before. After some digging, it looks like the tool is simply a wrapper for iLEX R.A.T.
What’s ILEX R.A.T?
iPadForums.net user who is probably the developer of the tool, explains it quite well:
ILEX R.A.T. stands for Remove All Tweaks. Basically this removes each and every installed app, tweak and dependency EXCLUDING the defaults from Cydia, so after you’ve jailbroken your device a while back, and you installed your hundreds of packages, it’ll all be removed with a single command.
What this is primarily used for is if your device ends up in a state where you cannot enter Safe Mode since you don’t have it, or if your device is stuck on any screen but is still recognized by your PC, or, if your device can be placed into Safe Mode and you can’t remove the tweak for some reason. The bigger use for this would be the general request of “How do I clean my device of all jailbroken apps and start over without restoring”. We’ve all had that thought run through our minds once our devices start to act sluggish.
A popular use for this as well would be as a contingency for A5+ devices, or basically devices that can’t be downgraded even with appropriate blobs and APTickets saved, meaning your iPad 2, 3, 4, Mini; and iPhone 4S and 5, where restoring is not an option since you want to retain your jailbreak.
So say you have an iPad Mini, and you’re on 6.1.2. Your device is acting sluggish, and you want to wipe all your tweaks and such so that you can start afresh but because the latest iOS is not jailbreakable, you don’t want to restore and lose your jailbreak, and since you have every single Cydia tweak installed, it’ll take you ages to delete them all manually. This will be for you.
I have embedded the video, which gives a demo of iLEX R.A.T:

So while I won’t call the Semi-Restore tool a scam as that was my first reaction when I visited the site, the use of the word “restore” is misleading as it is not anywhere near a restore or a semi-restore tool. 
Just like iLEX R.A.T, it seems like an interesting solution to fix the reboot loop problem if this solution doesn’t work, or you’re not able to identify the tweak that is causing it. You can check out this link to find out how to use iLEX R.A.T (I haven’t test it yet so please proceed with caution).
The Semi-Restore GUI tool should make this process a little simpler. According to the status update on its website, it is currently 60% complete and in the second round of beta testing.
As always, we’ll keep you posted.