It's been a big couple of weeks for Flappy Bird gamers. Almost from nowhere, Flappy Bird popped up at the top of the App Store and Play Store free app charts and since then it's been a real rollercoaster ride. First we had the discussion about just how much the free game is raking in through in-game ads, with some claiming the figure to be around the $50,000 mark per day. Then we were treated to the drama that followed news that the game's developer actually disliked the attention his work was receiving.
One of the great things about jailbreak tweaks is that they can be used to cut just about any corner in iOS. If we want to carry out a particular task quicker and more efficiently, there's usually a tweak for that, and every single day, the developers behind Cydia's wonderful exports remind us that the experience can always be optimized in ways we'd never imagined. Such is the nature of Phontact, a new tweak that, aside from having a name that rolls nicely off the tongue, allows you to access a special speed-dial facility by simply swiping the Phone icon in different directions.
Multi-user capabilities have long since been a feature sought by iOS users, and while this is not yet a possibility at stock level, the freedom offered by a jailbreak means that the boundaries imposed by Apple can virtually be diminished. A new tweak called GuestMode, while not able to facilitate multiple users in the purest sense, does offer a Windows / OS X-like guest feature that puts you in control, allowing you to share your device with others without having to worry about them snooping your files or accessing certain apps.
Flappy Bird is not only enjoying the kind of popularity that Angry Birds achieved in its first year as a mobile title, but it's actually making a lot of people a great deal angrier than Rovio's popular series ever did. Amid the cursing and frustration, the developer has pushed an update to the iOS version of the game, touching up the graphics, offering a better frame rate for a smoother performance, while also adding a few new birds to proceedings.
It took Apple until iOS 4 to finally come through with the basic commodity of folders, and a further three revisions - right up to iOS 7 - before these folders could finally be deemed substantial. But while it's nice to be able to put an unlimited amount of app icons in one spot in iOS 7, there's still room for improvement, and a new tweak called FolderBoard offers a little something extra by allowing you to open folders in full screen mode.
A vulnerability in Snapchat, the popular photo / video IM chat app, potentially leaves iPhone users susceptible to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which, when carried out, may cause a device to freeze up or crash.
Although Apple does not agree with the jailbreak community and does its utmost to prevent Cydia from reaching our devices, the Cupertino company has clearly been paying attention to some of the tweaks that have manifested from the center of the jailbreaking universe. Control Center, for example, seems heavily influenced by the famed SBSettings tweak, and although a user would previously have to jailbreak if they wished to enjoy animated wallpapers, now, this feature arrives as standard. But while it's easy enough to download other people's creations and set them as the home or lock screen backdrop, it's always nice to be able to cook up something unique, all by ourselves. For this very purpose, a new tweak by the name of WDynamic has just been released over at the BigBoss repo; more details after the leap.
Although Cydia is awash with themes, apps and an endless supply of tweaks that could readily eat away at your device's storage space, sometimes, it's nice to keep things simple. Some of the tweaks we've featured here post-Evasi0n7 have wonderfully demonstrated that you don't need to bombard the interface with widgets and additional fodder just because you can, and that actually, minimalism good. StatusBarSuite follows this kind of ethos, allowing you to de-clutter your status bar of all the annoying little icons you don't wish to see. Check it out after the fold.
Evad3rs have just released Evasi0n v1.0.5 for untethered iOS 7.0.5 jailbreak. Apple dropped the rather surprising iOS 7.0.5 to iPhone 5s/5c users outside the United States, and for a while, it appeared as though the Evasi0n jailbreak had been patched up. But it quickly became apparent that this was not the case, and having been deemed as untouched from a jailbreak-exploit point of view, iOS 7.0.5 is thankfully as innocuous as Apple portrayed in the release notes. Naturally, the ever-reliant Evad3rs team has updated its Evasi0n7 tool for iOS 7.0.5, meaning that it is now officially safe to update to.
iOS 7.1, the first major update since the seventh edition of Apple's mobile firmware first landed in September, has already clocked up five betas, and although we haven't really heard anything indicative of the eventual release date, it is widely assumed the that the GM and subsequent end-user roll-out isn't too far off. Now, though, 9to5Mac has come through with something a bit more concrete, citing "reliable sources" in claiming that iOS 7.1 will drop next month.
