Regular jailbreakers all have their individual reasons why they wait patiently for the development teams to develop the required software to liberate devices. Some love the freedom and the ability to say they have defied the might of Apple, while others do it just for their one favorite tweak that they can't live without. On a personal level, I fall into a few of the individual categories and religiously jailbreak my devices not only for some must have tweaks which make using an iDevice a more pleasurable experience, but also because I truly believe that after paying many hundreds of dollars for hardware I should have the liberty to do what I want with it within the confines of the law.
In the last day or so we have heard Apple announce the fact that the twenty fifth billionth application has been downloaded from their official App Store, confirming the application hub as the biggest on the mobile planet. Whilst the statistic clearly shows that iOS users are becoming increasingly active in the App Store, we should also spare a thought for the unofficial, Cydia store, which also turns in some impressive numbers. Cydia is home to some of the finest third-party tweaks and modifications available for an iOS device, and this is being added to on a daily basis.
I imagined that when Apple first started developing the Siri software to be distributed with the iPhone 4S handset, they would have hoped that the intelligent voice assistant would be taken to the hearts of users and quickly become an integral part of their mobile lives. After all, this isn't just some bonus feature or application which offers a small amount of entertainment before being discarded in the never-to-be-used-again pile. Siri is deeply integrated into the operating system, meaning that going forward; we are likely to see enhanced abilities as well as inclusion on all new devices brining Siri to a much wider audience.
With the App Store being launched in 2008, I am not so sure that anyone would have predicted the insane levels of success that it would enjoy during its infancy. We have to remember that Apple’s application market is not even four years old and already has close to 600,000 applications on it with over 100,000 registered developers regularly adding to that total. We are pretty sure that Apple would have taken great pride in announcing to the world that they were approaching the 25 billionth download on the App Store, offering a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the person who manages to download that app.
Although an iOS device can be easily secured by means of a passcode, the continual inputting of your secret combination can quickly become repetitive - to the point where you may feel locking your device isn't so important after all.
Once again, folks, it's that same old cliché - another day, another tweak; and yet again, another tweak aimed at enhancing the usability of Siri - Apple's answer to Halo's Cortana.
E-reading has become a hugely popular pastime over the last few years - largely attributable to the release of devices such as Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad tablet.
The majority of iOS device owners who choose to go down the root of jailbreaking, do so because of the functionality enhancements that it can provide. By installing Cydia as a byproduct of the jailbreak process, users are presented with a near endless supply of tweaks and modifications which can dramatically improve the already excellent user experience of an iPhone or iPad. One such tweak that can provide this enhanced experience is the one that we are pretty sure most community members have heard of, comes from developer Grant Paul (chpwn)and goes by the name of 'Zephyr'.
Security, or the lack of it, is very much a hot button topic these days, and nowhere more so than in the mobile space. It seems things may be getting worse before they get any better.
A potential new privacy loophole has been discovered in the way iOS handles the Camera Roll and how apps are granted permission to interact with it. Unsurprisingly, the pitchforks are out all over again.
