Remember what iOS was like before the days of folders? Page after page of assorted icons, and not only was it impractical, but an eyesore. Since iOS 4, things have been much easier to manage, but customization of said folders has been typically lacking from Apple. Despite boasting a dual-core A6 processor, not even the latest iPhone 5 can handle more than a few icons in one folder, and as for the folder icons themselves cannot be altered to look less cluttered. As jailbreakers will know, there are plenty of tweaks - namely chpwn's InfiniFolders and ashikase's revered FolderEnhancer - to allow for more icons in one folder, and if you've been looking for a way to change the folder icons from 3x3 to an altogether less-cluttered 2x2, you now can thanks to 2x2 Folder Icons.
The iPod touch is seen as the "iPhone without the phone part" by many, and while this is true to a degree (and Apple would love for you to think this), the truth is, the iPod touch falls short in every department against its cellular rival. It's not just every piece of hardware that is inferior to the iPhone, many software elements - besides those used for calling and tethering - have been skipped with the iPod touch for no good reason. The iPhone 5, for example, offers a nifty feature which allows you to capture still images from video while you are recording, and although it's only a minor feature, Apple felt it best only to offer it exclusively to iPhone 5 owners. Thankfully, the jailbreak scene is on hand to nullify this decision, and Still Capture Enabler delivers exactly what it purports to do.
Even with a fleet of enhancements and improvements with iOS 6 - including support for the iPad - Siri is still lacking in many departments. Apple has stipulated in the past that the voice assistant is currently still in beta stage, but after some eighteen months with the end user, the vast majority of folks rarely - or never - call upon the services offered by Siri. For those jailbroken however, the Cydia Store has come up with a variety of ways one maximize the potential of Siri, and AssistantEnhancer is perhaps one of the best we've seen to date. Created by Zaid Elkurdi, it unlocks a whole new world of possibilities while also making better what Siri is already capable of.
The Cydia Store is a treasure trove of useful tweaks, and whereas last week we showed how you could remove the 'typing' icon to prevent your correspondent from knowing you're typing a message, today arrives tweak which helps you utilize that very feature, but in a broader sense. When in the Messages app, or indeed in a conversation with somebody on iOS, you can see when they are typing a message back, but if you're at the home screen, for example, you've no way of knowing who may be just about to send something through. TypeStatus allows you to do so by adding that same ellipsis / speech bubble icon to your status bar whenever anybody is typing a message to you.
Instagram is the most popular social network for the editing and sharing of images, and although the user base continues to grow exponentially, the app itself is far from perfect. Not only could the UI benefit from a makeover, but several options one would perhaps expect from an app of this kind are clearly lacking. The ability to zoom in, for example, is something we can easily do natively on iOS, but when it comes to Instagram, those pinch-in and pinch-out gestures are to no avail. Luckily, a tweak by the name of Instahancer not only solves this particular caveat, but a bunch of other little nagging issues, and we'll be taking a closer look at how it works it magic after the break.
It's been quite a long time since we've covered anything meme-related here at Redmond Pie, and joining the many great apps we looked at last year - notably Memefier - comes a jailbreak tweak which adds a roster of over 350 rage faces to your iOS keyboard. Compatible with iPhones and iPod touch devices running iOS 6 or above, it provides you with several different memes to suit every occasion, and all are certain to put a smile on your recipient's face.
Since arriving with iOS 5, it's fair to say Siri has garnered fairly mixed publicity. It has its uses, of course, and recent improvements have certainly broadened its functionality, but the jury's out regarding whether it's something to be used on a daily basis, or just a novelty. Certainly, if that robotic (yet oh-so feminine) voice could be utilized for, say, the purpose of reading tweets out, we may consider calling on it (her?) services more frequently than most of us currently do. Thanks to TweetFeed, a jailbreak tweak by Devin LaFleur, Siri can indeed be used for the convenient purpose of catching up on your latest batch of <140's, and if you do find yourself sarcastically reading through some of the repetitive utterances of individuals in your timeline, there may also be some comedic value thrown in there, too.
During the big announcement of the PlayStation 4 yesterday, game developer Evolution Studios mentioned that companion app for Android tablets to its Drive Club title would allow gamers to communicate with others from a tablet running Google's software. At the time, it wasn't clear how far compatibility would go with other mobile devices, but Sony has just announced a new version of its ”PlayStation App”, which in turn offers a little more information on the matter. As well as being available to both the Android and iOS-using faithful, it will turn tablets and smartphones into 'second screen' controllers.
Since first making its debut with iOS 5, iMessage has proven itself as a great way for one to share messages between any iOS device, provided a cellular or Wi-Fi connection is present. It's generally secure, rarely drops service, and is a lot quicker and more reliable (and often cheaper) than the traditional SMS. However, it is not perfect, and like so many of iOS's key features, it's annoyingly difficult to customize. The options for tailoring the experience to suit one's needs are scarce, but if you have always been annoyed by the fact that a user on the other end receives that little speech bubble to indicate that you're typing, well, there's a tweak to rectify that!
Instagram has been nothing short of a revelation in its short lifespan. What started out as an app for iPhone now spans multiple devices and platforms, and having been purchased by Facebook last year for an eye-watering one billion dollars, its rise is quite rightly seen as landmark achievement. The app itself however, which allows users to take, edit, share and comment on photos, is certainly not as feature-rich as some would like, and the lack of ability to save photos - as one can on the Web - is certainly a limitation. It's not the be-all, end-all of the Instagram experience, yet is still kind of annoying, but much like the new-found ability to copy text from the Facebook News Feed, a tweak for jailbroken iPhones has been developed to facilitate the saving of Instagram photos from your News Feed directly to the device's camera roll.
