As much as some of us really enjoy using iOS, those amongst us that are realists surely have to admit that it has its little foibles. Apple has gradually ironed some of them out over the years and, unfortunately, baked new ones into subsequent versions of iOS as well. You don't build something as complicated as a mobile operating system without having quirks.
Lock screens are a largely personal affair. What one person thinks is perfection personified, another may call ugly and overbearing. We're big fans of minimalistic lock screens here at Redmond Pie, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people out there that want every option known to man to be available as soon as they turn their screen on. Being able to tweak iOS to do just what you want is what jailbreaking is all about, after all.
A week ago, app developer Steven Troughton-Smith revealed some interesting screenshots regarding the forthcoming iOS in the Car feature from Apple. Although it is unknown when exactly the grand roll out will commence, Troughton-Smith's findings manifested through a beta build of iOS 7.1, and as such, we anticipate that the final version may well include the new automobile-friendly implementation. Since last week, the well-known dev has been digging into iOS 7.0.3 and discovered that certain features of iOS in the Car are already present (albeit hidden) deep within this release, and using the iOS Simulator, has posted a clip onto YouTube, offering - for the first time - a brief glimpse of the dash-tailored system in operation.
The LaCie Fuel storage device, which is as compact as it is stylish, allows you to store up to 1TB of data, which can in turn be wirelessly beamed to your Apple devices such as your Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Not only can you store a whole bunch of media, but with AirPlay support, you can actually stream your favorite movies and TV shows to your Apple TV, or hook up to your AirPlay-ready speakers for a music-listening session.
Ever since the Evasi0n7 jailbreak recently came about courtesy of the Evad3rs team, we've seen swathes of great tweaks and apps emerge from the Cydia Store. Many of them have offered ways to truly manipulate the functionality of iOS in a number of ways, while others, like today's tweak, are a lot more aesthetically-focused. Eclipse, a new tweak by developer Guillermo Morán brings a "night mode" to the interface, so all of the bright, white color effects become a mixture of dark grays and blacks, nicely accented by an optional orange tint.
Zephyr was one of the most popular tweaks for iOS 6, and if you happened to use it yourself, you'll know exactly why. The ability to swipe between app windows with such fluidity felt like a feature that should always have been a part of the iOS experience, and since the iOS 7 jailbreak came about courtesy of Evasi0n, we've heard from a number of readers asking if Zephyr for iOS would be making a reappearance for the latest and greatest version of Apple's mobile operating system. Just recently, a new tweak entered the jailbreak scene called MultitaskingGestures, which, as the name implies, brings that Zephyr-esque experience to the new firmware.
Apple's earnings call conferences tend to be of general interest to the wider on-looking tech community, particularly Q1, which covers the lucrative October-to-December holiday sales period. With the iPhone 5s having sold in unprecedented numbers for a new Apple smartphone (or any smartphone, for that matter), and the likes of the Retina iPad mini and iPad Air having debuted, this Q1 earnings call was always going to be impressive, and in actual fact, it was record-busting.
We told you not that long ago that SwiftKey is potentially on its way to iOS via the SwiftKey Notes app, but if you're looking for a more system-wide approach to things then your only option is to spring for something that requires jailbreaking - at least until Apple sees the light and opens the door to truly customizable keyboards throughout iOS. With that unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, you might want to check out PredictiveKeyboard.
Thanks to the iPhone's various sensors, a lot can be achieved with very little or no input from the user. When we put the device to our face, for example, the proximity sensor beside the receiver automatically switches the device's display off, and on other occasions, such as gaming, the accelerometer does a lot of the hard work for us. But while these are all very useful, it's fair to say that Apple isn't really maximizing the hardware within but thanks to the wonders of a jailbreak - specifically a new, feature-rich tweak called FaceOff 7 - we can begin to explore things in a little more depth. Discover more of this marvelous tweak after the break!
I'll make no bones about it: the iOS keyboard is, for me, an almighty pain in the rear. It seems to predate the rest of the operating system, and while iOS 7 is very advanced compared with the old days of iPhone OS, the keyboard is, by and large, unchanged. But thanks to the world of jailbreaking, those who like to type with some kind of fluidity can find some respite, and while there's not really anything like SwiftKey, there are a few tweaks, like a new entry over at the BigBoss repo called exKey, that promise to enhance the iOS keyboard feature.
