Mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad are advanced pieces of kit with a number of powerful features, but one of the main reasons why they are so popular is the pure convenience which they provide in being able to accomplish certain tasks at an accelerated rate. Smartphone users generally tend to install a wide array of apps depending on their personal taste, but certain system settings and toggles are used consistently by most.
In the last week or so, we have seen a number of developers release their work onto the Cydia store that exists to offer an alternative implementation of Apple's native multitasking experience. A standard installation of iOS allows a user to double tap the Home button to invoke a switcher tray along the bottom of the screen which holds the icons of the currently backgrounded apps.
Due to its high usage, Facebook for iOS seems to bear the brunt of many a user's frustration, and it seems every update is greeted with hordes of disgruntled users complaining of bugs, connection errors, and other nagging problems.
Tweaks that hook into the music-playing aspects of a jailbroken iOS device seem hot property at the minute, with a few hitting Cydia in the last day or so. PodControl is one a number of music-orientated tweaks that have landed in Cydia, with its sole purpose being; to give users a quicker, more efficient way of playing and flicking through their music library. By default, iOS provides music controls in the multitasking switcher tray which can be accessed by double pressing the Home button and then swiping through the views to get to the controls, not exactly quick access by any stretch of the imagination.
What could possible be better than having an iPhone or iPod touch with five docked icons at the bottom of screen? Yes, you guessed it, having ten docked icons is undoubtedly better and provides double the docked app fun. The DoubleDock tweak that hit the Cydia store in the last few hours offers that exact functionality, and will definitely prove to be one of those packages that either appeals or it doesn't.
With the beautiful Retina display, the iPhone is a great little device for those who like to take and view photographs but aren't keen to shell out hundreds of dollars for a separate camera. We all know the iPhone comes with a built in camera as well as an accompanying Photos app that allows users to view, manipulate photos and create albums as they see fit. The app is a great starting point, but like so many other native iOS apps that come preinstalled on the device, it could do with a little more functionality.
Perhaps not the most exciting, but one of the most useful aspects of an iPhone or iPod touch in my opinion is the built-in functionality to display weather conditions for you local city using the default stock Weather app. iOS has always had a default Weather app from day one, which has remained relatively untouched with every new version of iOS which Apple releases.
At one point or another I am pretty sure everyone has wanted their iPhone to be able to communicate with them. For those who are lucky enough to have the iPhone 4S, Apple's Siri voice assistant probably has you covered in the human to device communications department, but for the rest of us; Cydia has come up trumps again with the Text2Speech app. Text2Speech has been around on Cydia for a while, but is one of those nice little apps that manages to raise a smile on our faces every time we use it.
Everyone loves a bit of privacy every now and then, and let's face it, I am pretty sure that everyone has given their cell phone number out to someone that they later regretted giving it to for one reason or another. You would expect, that in this advanced day and age when smartphones play such an increasingly important and prominent role in our everyday lives, we would have a native filtering option on the device, or at very least our networks would be able to provide such a service.
If you're a fan of Formula One racing, you may have been a little disappointed with the games on the mobile front thus far. As a pretty avid fan of F1, I certainly have been.
