As a company, Facebook has been open-sourcing a number of development libraries that will greatly improve other third-party apps going forward. Now, thanks to the jailbreak world, those who have liberated their iOS devices from Apple's walled garden can benefit from Facebook's mobile power by revealing a number of hidden settings within the native iOS app.
As I have mentioned on a number of occasions now, the jailbreak community cannot seem to get enough of lock screen-based tweaks, but while Cydia developers have been showcasing their creativity in bringing all-new features to the front gate of iOS, Stride 2 is a vast improvement on an old favorite, Stride for iOS. Simply put, this tweak takes the mundaneness out of unlocking your device by enabling you to set your very own, custom pattern, and developer Adam Bell has certainly put work in to ensure his two-year-old invention is in-keeping with the recent changes to the Apple software.
The App Store has been inundated with photo and video-related apps over the past couple of years, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise given the significant advances that have been made with regards to smartphone camera tech. But it's a fair assessment to make that a large portion of said apps seem to wallow in the pool of mediocrity, and only every now and then do we catch a real gem. Snapseed was a prime example of an image editor with a truly professional edge, and now, the app widely regarded as the best in show for videographers has just gone free!
Some jailbreak tweaks like to scrape the surface, offering minor alterations to a certain function or UI element. Others, however, seek to rebuild a part of iOS from the ground up, and Convergance, a new entry to the ModMyi repository, completely re-imagines your iPhone's lock screen.
Since the release of the Evasi0n jailbreak for iOS 7, the number of tweaks - particularly those aimed at revamping the lock screen - has sky-rocketed, and while some lock screen enhancers have sought ways to increase general functionality, others have served only to look pretty. Timely, a new entry to the BigBoss repo, certainly swings toward the vanity side of the scale, offering a completely different perspective on the clock feature.
As smartphone owners, many of us have become experts in finding apps and games for free or on the cheap, but it's all the sweeter when said deal relates to a title or app that we're actually going to enjoy or use. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is both exhilarating and nostalgia-inducing in equal measure, and thanks to makers SEGA, it has just gone free.
If you hate the iOS 7 power-off screen then you're going to love BetterPowerDown. When Apple finally released iOS 7 to the public last year, it's fair to say that it wasn't met with complete acceptance. Some of the design changes that Jony Ive brought to the iPhone and iPad had some people not just shaking their heads, but also longing for the more familiar look and feel of the versions of iOS that they were so used to.
Apple's iOS is commonly referred to as a "walled garden," a label used to described the subtle limitations attached to a closed source piece of software. But every now and then, we're reminded that Apple's mobile operating system isn't a completely fusty old stick-in-the-mud, and that actually, there are means of customizing the experience without having to resort to a jailbreak. AnyFont, an app that lets you install custom TrueType and OpenType fonts, is a prime example, and for $1.99 over at the App Store, is well worth checking out.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie is about to launch next month, and as anticipated, the accompanying title is now also available to download for both Android and iOS.
Facebook has continued the recent trend of improving its mobile app by releasing version 9.0 of its native iOS app. Updates for the official primary Facebook app and secondary Messenger chat app have been coming thick and fast in recent weeks as the world's largest social network puts in place plans to transition chat and messaging functionality away from the main app.
