Even with the jailbreak scene having thrived for a number of years, and many bases having been covered in terms of what Apple is missing by default, there's still plenty of scope for innovation. Every week, I am genuinely surprised by just how creative developers have been with ideas and execution, and a new tweak by the name of Icon Tool shows a great degree of invention. In essence, Icon Tool acts as something of a 'right click' for your home screen icons, providing a bunch of useful extras aside from the basic open/move/delete offered by Apple at stock level.
Apple's Messages app does a reasonable job when it comes to quick communication, but functionality wise, it could certainly use a couple of improvements. As we continue to wait in hope, the jailbreak scene offers a multitude of options to enhance the experience, and a new tweak by the name of Messages (yes, confusing I know), helps you quickly and efficiently reply to, or compose, messages from anywhere on your device.
The Secret “Now Playing” package is one of the latest jailbreak tweaks to make itself at home on the BigBoss servers and could prove to be a must have package for those secretive music lovers amongst us. Everyone loves a bit of mystery in their lives, especially those who secretly harbor a terrible taste in music and want to hide the fact that they are bouncing their leg to a bit of Justin Bieber when on the train home from work or college. Secretly Now Playing means that your lock screen visuals no longer need to give away the monstrosities that you are listening to.
As expected, T-Mobile has today pushed a carrier update out to unlocked iPhone 5 handsets running on its network. Released just as official pre-orders began for the T-Mobile iPhone 5, the carrier update enables some of the typical iPhone 5 features on the network whilst also boasting one or two extra additions along the way.
GSMArena has revealed a bunch of iPhone 5S "prototype" images sourced from a tipster, and speculates as to whether they could bear any kind of resemblance to the Cupertino company's forthcoming seventh-gen smartphone. Revealing a curved display and form factor akin to the product outlined in a patent Apple was granted just days ago, it may well just be that an individual with Photoshop skills has decided to take advantage of the circumstances, but with many sources suggesting Apple's next iPhone could hit the market in a matter of a couple of months, it's certainly worth checking out.
The Barrel tweak for iOS is a favorite of the many whom dabble in the business of jailbreaking. It doesn't serve much of a practical purpose, of course, but in changing the way your icons behave when you scroll through pages, brings a whole new dynamic to proceedings. In a very similar way, Alertmate allows you to alter the behavior of the pop-up alert which appears in the center of your screen when you receive a notification.
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.
Way before smartphones became popular, users spent most of their time using applications on their computers, with some web browsing on the side. Despite the growth of the Web over the last few years, it turns out that the habits of users are still much the same: choosing locally installed apps over websites. This is even true on smartphones, according to a study performed by an American market research company. More details can be found after the jump.
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!
