For any smartphone user who owns an Android-based device and is slightly geekish, rooting comes as naturally as eating, sleeping, and other basic human instinct. Not only does it unlock the true potential of your device, but also makes it possible to run several apps that otherwise are out of question. Android, in this regard, also holds a great advantage over its fruity counterpart, iPhone, as the open source nature of the former makes it much easier to gain root level access on the device. The fact that Android developer community is huge doesn’t hurt either. Thus, whenever a new device comes out, people expectantly wait for the developers to work their magic and provide root methods. Now, it turns out, that you don’t have to even wait for the actual device to come out, because renowned developer Chainfire has rooted Samsung Galaxy S4 with a fully working auto-root mechanism.
Nokia Music opens the door to what is actually a pretty gratifying music listening experience, and with the app having found a good home on Windows Phone smartphones, a version has just been released for both Windows 8 and Windows RT. As part of Nokia's continued coalition with Microsoft, the Finnish company is also working hard to raise once more its own profile, and although there is plenty of competition in the streaming music game, Nokia Music fans - including this one - will be pleased to see accessibility stretched to other Windows devices and machines.
LockLauncher, a popular jailbreak tweak has seen an update to version 2.0 today, adding new features and compatibility to the mix. More details can be found right after the break.
Those iPhone users who make use of a VPN connection will find that their phone gets a little less smart later this month after Apple announced that it is removing a feature from its VPN settings.
With Jony Ive offering his very highly-regarded input to the next major iOS release, many Apple enthusiasts are expecting some significant improvements when the company's mobile software does get its big update later on this year. We've already been treated to a deluge of iOS 7 concepts and ideas by numerous designers from across the globe, and adding to this list comes an interesting video / image set alluding to iOS 7 from a designer under the Flickr handle F.Bianco.
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.
HTC's One smartphone is the product of meticulous engineering, and seeing as though the Taiwanese company has quite a lot riding on its success, it would appear that extra provisions have been made to ensure this particular device has the "wow" factor. Like every high-end device on the market, though, it hasn't taken too long for the knockoff makers to come up with a cheaper alternative, and although such clone devices were once very low-end, the 'HDC One' surfacing from China is perhaps anything but low-end.
T-Mobile is finally about to carry the iPhone 5 officially, and those eager to get their hands on the device will be pleased to learn that it's now available to pre-order from both T-Mobile and Apple. With the launch scheduled for the 12th of this month, you'll only have to wait a week before receiving the T-Mobile iPhone 5, which will, in time, be fully compatible with the company's fledgling LTE infrastructure.
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.
With Google's Project Glass commanding quite a bit of media attention over the past year, it was only going to be a matter of time before other companies jumped on the bandwagon. Following the news yesterday that fellow search giant Baidu has, to an extent, been spending some time researching a similar offering called the Baidu Eye, one analyst believes Microsoft is also toying with the idea. In a note to investors, Brian White noted that he expects the Redmond company to release a set of Web-ready digital spectacles next year, and will go head-to-head with Google Glass.
