Rejoice, jailbreakers, for we bring good news. The jailbreak app store for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Cydia, has just received an update, making the software aligned and suited for use with iOS 7. Things are finally moving.
With Apple having brought Control Center - a toggle system à la SBSettings - as well as the Notification Center to the lock screen with iOS 7 beta, many have indicated that they will perhaps not be jailbreaking when the forthcoming version of Apple's iconic mobile OS hits the end user this fall. Apple has worked hard to bring in quite a few features that jailbreak fans have long since craved for, but despite this, the closed nature of iOS will mean the jailbreak system continues to thrive, and one designer has come up with a screenshot of what Cydia may look like if it ever did grace iOS 7. It’s awesome, and we want you to definitely check it out!
The Evad3rs team finally gave jailbreakers the moment they’d been waiting for by releasing the Evasi0n jailbreak on Monday, and while the general response has been positive, some users have born the brunt of one or two teething issues. Soon after the almost to-the-second countdown release of the untethered jailbreak, it emerged that some - namely those jailbreaking their iPhone - were experiencing problems with the stock Weather app, but thankfully, the Evad3rs team has come through with a swift fix via Cydia.
The year 2012 saw a number of quality releases for jailbroken devices over on the Cydia store for iOS. We would like to take a look back over what has actually been an extremely successful year for developers of jailbreak tweaks and apps in terms of innovation and the release of quality packages onto the Cydia platform.
One of the great things about the Apple's iOS mobile operating system is the native ability to be able to set certain restrictions on the device that prevent users from performing certain tasks. The restrictions options, which are accessible through the General menu of the Settings app on the device, are similar to parental controls that allows the owner of the device to restrict certain actions from being performed on the device, such as launching the App Store, Camera or Safari.
Despite its imperfections, it's hard to fault Cydia - the nucleus of the open-source jailbreak community, and with such a wide range of tweaks available serving different purposes, it's quite easy to forget that actually, there isn't much in the way of an alternative.
Whenever we talk about jailbreaking an iOS device, we invariably mention the Cydia platform in the same paragraph. Whenever a jailbreak is processed using one of the main development tools, Cydia is a by-product and installed upon the device, allowing users to browse through all of the packages contained within. Even though users generally use Cydia on a daily basis, I would imagine that due to the fact that it contains a very simple to use front end, people would be unaware of the processes which take place behind the scenes.
As jailbreaking has become a more widely accepted method of gaining iDevice freedom in the last few years, the Cydia platform has become synonymous with the act. The Cydia name and icon have almost become a visual indication that a device is indeed jailbroken, with all of the jailbreak tools installing Cydia as a matter of course with each fresh jailbreak. While it is extremely likely that this will always be the case, surely a bit of competition is good for community?
Despite Apple maintaining a closed-source stance with its iOS mobile software, jailbreaks from the various dev-teams have allowed an abundance of useful, unregulated apps to be installed onto our beloved iDevices.
In a move which is sure to draw comparisons to the Cydia store which exists on jailbroken iOS devices; tablets and phones running the Android operating system are set to get an unofficial application store which will be home to all of the applications which have been rejected or banned by Google, as well as modifications and custom ROMs. The iOS App Store is notorious for being tightly monitored by Apple, with the Cupertino company having the last say over what gets accepted for sale. Finding software which is available for Android devices outside of the official marketplace has never been particularly difficult, however, it looks set to become a whole lot easier.
