Cydia may be a hub for all kinds of useful and performance-enhancing tweaks, but there are also plenty that serve little practical purpose other than to alter the look here, or add a touch of vanity there. That being said, it's not necessarily a bad thing, and although over-zealous themes have ruined many a YouTube tweak demonstration video, sometimes these aesthetic customization tools do actually originate from somebody with creative nous. This certainly seems to have been the case with developer Evan Swick, whose Beacon tweak allows those with jailbroken devices to add a delightful touch of animation to that Apple boot logo.
Natively, iOS allows you to set a passcode (or indeed, an alphanumeric password) to protect your device from prying eyes, which is great, of course, when it works. However, it’s a bit of an inconvenience to continue unlocking a device and typing in those digits if, in actual fact, we only really want to lock one or two apps down. Recognizing that people don’t tend to take advantage of iOS’s security features to safeguard their Angry Birds score, one developer has come through with a great jailbreak tweak that allows you to securely protect your device’s photos with a password.
The native ability of most mobile devices to take screenshots can be incredibly useful, particularly if, like us, you're in the business of reviewing apps and games. As you may have noticed from some of our jailbreak posts, adding a device-like frame can turn a boring old capture into a beautiful, lifelike impression of a device in action, and although Photoshop skills tend to be required for these kinds of edits to be made, you can now add such frames natively on both iOS and Android. We've found two of the best apps in Screenshot - Frame Maker for iOS and Device Frame Generator for Android, and if you'd like to visually enhance some of your screen captures, check out the lowdown on each after the break!
Apple’s iPhone has one of the best audio engines in it, both in terms of hardware and the driver components. It isn’t really that surprising, considering that it was the Cupertino company that made the iPod genre of portable music players popular, and they’ve always delivered stellar quality. While the hardware that the device packs under its hood is really solid, the accompanying earphones (other than the new ear pods) and the stock iOS Music app are an entirely different story. The earphones are barely passable for very casual listening experience, and the app itself is pretty bland, to say the least. On these accounts, most people end up using third-party solutions both in terms of earphones and the music player.
Although Apple's iCloud service very much looks after those in ownership of an an iOS device or Mac, the same cannot be said for the cloud service of rival Microsoft. SkyDrive is available across all of the major platforms, and today, the version tailored to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch has just been bumped to version 3.0. As you would expect from a whole number update, there are plenty of new features off the bat, including support for full resolution photo downloads, iPad mini and iPhone 5 support, as well as a completely revamped interface. Full details, as well as the all-important download link, can be found after the break!
There's nothing like the re-release of a classic retro title to prompt a rush of nostalgia, and for those old enough to remember, it has been almost two decades since Duke Nukem 2 first released on MS-DOS. Just before the turn of the millennium, it made its second appearance on Nintendo's GameBoy Color, and with December marking the iconic title's twentieth anniversary, another remake has just been released for iOS before being teased back in March. Mode details and download link after the break.
The jailbreak scene is not only invaluable for all those practical tweaks that enhance the functionality of iOS, but also a great wealth of resources to those looking to freshen up the look of their iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Color Keyboard, as we first reported on when it was introduced back in 2011, lives up to its name by allowing you to create all kinds of interesting looks to your keys, and a currently free theme by the name of "Dashing" is one of the best CK themes we've seen to date.
A lot of iOS users go through the jailbreak process so that they can install different packages and tweaks that go some way in improving the functionality of their device. Apple has undoubtedly gone through a lot of effort to make their iOS devices some of the most powerful pieces of consumer technology available, but it can never hurt to have different tweaks available that build on that great work from the fruit company. Those who have been looking for a way to improve the capture quality from the front-facing camera on the iPhone or iPod touch should definitely check out the Front HDR package on Cydia.
For those among us who regularly use the native Camera app on the iPhone to capture images, chances are that you are constantly looking to the App Store and Cydia for the latest and greatest app or tweak to take your photography to the next level. The release of iOS 6 saw Apple take on third-party panorama apps by implementing their own capture facility within the Camera app itself, which is a feature that has now been extended thanks to the LLBPano tweak within Cydia.
Taking a screenshot in iOS is easy. Apple has offered the feature since day one, and as long as you can master the simultaneous pressing of the sleep and home buttons, a screen capture will automatically be deposited into your camera roll. How is it so, then, that taking a video recording of the current screen is so much more difficult? The process tends to involve costly, time-consuming desktop software, but thanks to a little jailbreak app by the name of RecordMyScreen, it needn't be this way. More details right after the jump!
