“Apple’s goal has always been to insure that our customers have a great experience with their iPhone and we know that jailbreaking can severely degrade the experience. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones as this can violate the warranty and can cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.”
And here’s the EFF
By granting all of EFF’s applications, the Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress have taken three important steps today to mitigate some of the harms caused by the DMCA,” said Jennifer Granick, EFF’s Civil Liberties Director. “We are thrilled to have helped free jailbreakers, unlockers and vidders from this law’s overbroad reach.”
So anyone here heeding Apple’s warnings of doom and gloom, or are you two busy partying in the streets in celebration of your new legal standing?
The Library of Congress’ DMCA exception for jailbreaking is big news for our community. The new ruling basically says that jailbreaking or unlocking devices is not illegal. But I think the bigger question on most people’s minds is what that’s going to mean for end users and the jailbreak community in general. So what does this ruling mean for you, jailbreak ninjas? Read on to find out.
Now we all know the iPhone has its shortcomings. Every smartphone does. In the iPhone world, we jailbreak to compensate. Android users may root their phones to side load apps. We also have a big issue (mainly in the US) where unlocking your phones is frowned upon. Users have cried foul for a long time. Logically, if you buy an iPhone outright in the states, you should be free to take that phone to whatever carrier you’d like. Yet they’re still locked down to AT&T for state-side users.
Today’s ruling is definitely a step in the right direction and a huge hurdle for groups like EFF, but how it will effect end users right “now” still remains somewhat unclear. Now keep in mind, as of now, this is strictly my opinion. What I’m taking from this is that Apple or any other phone manufacturer will not be able to sue you or take legal action for jailbreaking or unlocking your device. Does that mean they have to be okay with it or aid you in doing it? Absolutely not.
What about warranties?
In my opinion, I don’t think anything will change (as of now). Apple will still have the same stance on modifying your iOS devices and the risks involved. I can’t image it would be hard for apple to play off a software malfunction on user error or the fact that you downloaded an application that was not approved or isn’t supported by them. What if you have a hardware issue? That should be a little different. Apple shouldn’t be allowed to deny you hardware repairs solely based on the fact that you are jailbroken. I’ve read in forums several times that users would attempt to exchange white iPhones for hairline cracks and get turned away because their device was jailbroken. I’d really like someone at Apple to explain to me how being jailbroken caused a crack in the casing. Other users have said they swapped their phone just fine. I’m assuming this probably depends upon what store you go to and how much the genius really pays attention to the phone before performing a swap. Either way – I don’t see this ruling changing the way Apple handles servicing jailbroken or unlocked devices.
Unlocking
Users have long been unlocking devices and taken them to other GSM carriers such as T-Mobile. If this becomes a common practice, I’m curious to see how carriers will handle that. Honestly, I don’t think they will. They’ll refer you to the manufacturer. And if that carrier happens to be Apple, if you don’t have a valid AT&T SIM, I still think you’ll have a hard time getting them to service your phone.
If unlocking becomes a standard practice are users can buy unlocked devices to take to whichever GSM carrier they’d like, then Apple would not have the software argument to hide behind, nor would any manufacturer. AT&T offers unlock codes to users who have been on contract for a specified period of time for pretty much every device in their lineup, except the most popular ones. And obviously, that includes the iPhone.
Cat & Mouse
The Dev Team and jailbreaks have long played the cat and mouse game with Apple. A jailbreak is released, a couple months later, an update to iOS is released, it breaks the jailbreak or patches the exploit. Jailbreakers go back to the drawing board and find yet another exploit. And the cycle continues. I don’t see any end to this either. Apple may not be able to sue you, but they sure don’t have to like it or condone it.
Conclusion
So my opinion? I don’t think a thing will change for end users, as of right now anyways. Apple can still choose not to honor warranties, they just can’t take legal action, given you aren’t using a jailbreak for unlawful purposes. Around these parts, we fully support the jailbreak community, without supporting those who use it for illegal purposes. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple and other manufacturers respond. But in the mean time, what do you guys think?
Did the Library of Congress just add a DCMA exception for Jailbreaking? Why yes they did:
Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.
Engagdet lays out what it means and — more importantly — what it doesn’t:
you should know that this in no way requires Apple to jailbreak your phone for you, or lay down its arms in this ongoing fight. Basically, they just can’t sue you for the specific act of breaking their protections, but there’s nothing stopping from putting those protections in there in the first place, or for suing you for an infringement not covered in this exception — like using Apple code in a non-Apple-approved way, or installing illegal software. Not that any of you jailbreakers would ever do that.
Rooting Android is also covered, and both firmware and software are now in the language.
It’s no secret our beloved iPads will not be running Adobe Flash natively anytime soon. That however hasn’t stifled the communities desire to at least try it out. Be it good, bad or just downright ugly; @comex has come to the rescue of those with inquiring minds by putting together what he considers and alpha build of Frash. Frash, being a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for Android taken from the latest Froyo builds. It’s been a while now since the actual release took place. Given that, I decided since I have a jailbroken iPad I would give it a try and see if Flash on iPad was something so compelling that it would add to the already awesome experience and the following is what I came up with.
Installation And Uninstallation:
The installation process of Frash is quite simple. While it may not exactly be for everyone, if you managed to jailbreak your iPad then you should be quite comfortable in installing Frash. The process is as follows:
You will need to install SSH on your iPad from Cydia and then reboot iPad.
You will need the latest Frash.deb file (Google this folks, we cannot host it)
You’ll need to load up something to browse your iPads internal files. CyberDuck for Mac is suggested or WinSCP for Windows users. When logging in, you will need to supply your iPads credentials. In this case login is ‘root’ and password is ‘alpine’.
Open up the iPad’s filesystem and navigate to /var/root/Media
Inside here create a folder named ‘Cydia’, open it and inside it create a folder, ‘AutoInstall’ i.e. /var/root/Media/Cydia/AutoInstall
Open the folder ‘AutoInstall’ and copy Frash.deb from step 3 here and reboot the iPad (May need to do it more then once)
Should you decide to uninstall Frash, just search for Frash in Cydia and you will find the uninstaller.
Implementation And Use:
So now what?? If the process has gone as it should have you should now be able to open up mobile Safari and browse to any site which has Flash content be able able to view it. Again, keep in mind all this is alpha. Do expect crashes, do expect certain portions of flash enabled sites to not work. Also, get used to seeing that HUGE red Flash logo on practically every site you go to. The implementation is certainly not where some folks would love it to be but, comex has said he will continue to improve upon frash and eventually also make it available for the iPhone (3GS and iPhone 4). This is great stuff for those who really want to have Flash on their devices.
Closing Thoughts:
For now anyways, Steve Jobs was right in my opinion. We really do not need flash in our iPads. Using Frash in it’s current state after a while just simply began to annoy me. Flash ad’s, big flash logos all over the place, embedded videos that once worked, no longer did. Some of this stuff comex can surely fix. However, some of it really just isn’t worth having in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure many could argue had Steve allowed it we’d likely see a better implementation of Flash but since that’s not how things turned out, this is what we have. Once some of the bugs have been worked out in frash, I may return to check it out but for now, I’m of the impression that I’m better off without it.
Geohot has updated his blog to let us know that he’s apparently jailbroken his iPhone 4 in less than one day. There’s a little caveat though — he’s said he probably won’t release it. Well I guess my question is, what’s the point in posting it up then? Most people are familiar with Geohot’s blackra1n and purplera1n jailbreak tools. They were simple and downright easy.
He also took the time to mention the rumors of limera1n.com — basically stating that it’s no more than a waterdrop on the web and he’s never mentioned it before, so don’t read too much into it. My opinion? A picture of Cydia on an iPhone 4 is pretty unconvincing. He certainly has the skills and the record to find an exploit and jailbreak iPhone 4, but why no video, and why no seeming interest in releasing it?
To say the least, the reason for the post is confusing.
As for now, we’ve got PwnageTool 4.0.1 for iOS4, but iPhone 4 users are going to have to wait a while longer. I guess we’ll see what the Dev Team and Spirit developers come up with.
Frash is a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for Android to the iPhone, using a compatibility layer, by comex ( http://twitter.com/comex ). Frash can currently run most Flash programs natively in the MobileSafari browser. Frash currently only runs on the iPad, but support for other devices (3GS+ only due to technical restrictions) is planned, as well as support for iOS 4.
A release is planned for when Frash is stable. Developers are welcome to join the effort at http://github.com/comex/frash – fork it and send a pull request with your patches.
Shot on an iPhone 4 and edited using iMovie on the phone.
iRealSMS 3.0 for iPhone is a jailbreak utility that you can use in place of the default messaging app. Up until this point, I had always used QuickReply for SMS. A several of you TiPb’ers recommended I look at iRealSMS 3.0 so I did. And I’m impressed. iRealSMS 3.0 exceeds the features of QuickReply for SMS by a landslide.
When you launch the app, you’re greeted with a screen that shows 3 tabs along the bottom; folders, conversations, and settings. Everything you need is in one easy to access place. I like that aspect a lot, as most apps put their user configurations in settings, which just means you have to go one more place to make changes. I wish more developers would start including settings within their applications.
One thing I didn’t like about QuickReply was if you closed out of a text, you still had to exit out of what you were doing in order to respond. This isn’t the case with iRealSMS 3.0, you simply set a shortcut in your settings to be able to access Quick Send. I love this feature as I’m really forgetful. I will be playing a game or reading news feeds and think of 2 other things I needed to tell someone and have to close out of my current task in order to do it. With iRealSMS, this is no longer a problem for me.
You also have the option of a blacklist feature. You can also choose to have all texts sent by a blacklisted number automatically deleted. Another feature that most texting apps lack is delivery notification. Very handy feature. Some users reported it didn’t work but I tested it with a friend and it seemed to work okay with me.
Emoji also show up in an easy to access drop down menu or you can choose to have any emoticons you type out automatically turned into Emoji. I remember last summer Leanna introduced me to the world of Emoji via the app store, and I haven’t been able to go a day without them since (thanks Leanna!).
The price tag for iRealSMS 3.0 is a bit steep compared to that of its counterparts, but for the feature set you get, the $9.99 price tag may be well justified. There’s a free trial as well, so you can always try it out and see if it seems like a good value to you, and purchase after giving it a test run.
iRealSMS also has an iRealNetwork, as they call it, which will allow you to buy texting credits if you don’t wish to have a texting package. The current rate is 8 EURO cents per text (of course you’ll have to convert that to your own currency). In almost every case, that’ll average out to a heck of a lot cheaper than standard texting plans cost for those of you who are looking to save some cash or cut out texting charges.
If you picked up iRealSMS 3.0 or have another jailbreak text supplement you use, let us know what you think in the comments!
Pros
Folders
Blacklist
Snappy response times
Very configurable
QuickSend option
Credit System for those who don’t have a texting package
iMovie has been modified to run on iPhone 3GS, making the previously iPhone 4 exclusive app just a tad less exclusive:
David Romhan Torres: I just make iMovie for iphone 4 run on an iphone 3GS, it’s very simple just download it from iTunes, modify info.plist file and change the Minimum system version to 3.0.0 and front-facing-camera to false
If iMovie can run on an iPhone 3GS, why did Apple make it iPhone 4 exclusive? Probably for the same reason there’s no video recording or wallpaper on an iPhone 3G. Apple is very quick to cut off older hardware when they think it will have any impact at all on user experience. iPhone 4 has double the RAM and a faster processor and that’s what Apple decided to make the cut off point.
And just like 3rd parties came up with video recorders for the 3G, iPhone 3GS has had video editors for a while already (ReelDirector, obviously), and will obviously continue to do so. Just not Apple’s. It’s how they roll.
Taimur over at Redmond Pie gave the iMovie for iPhone 3GS port a whirl and you can check out the results in the video below.
With iOS 4 and iPhone 4 Apple has again closed the functionality gap, but is it enough to retire Jailbreak once and for all?
iPhone 4 and iOS4 brings with it many welcome additions that some users have obtained via jailbreak for years now. While iOS 4 Jailbreak is no possible for some older devices, it will likely be a while before it’s possible on iPhone 4. Geohot has claimed he has an exploit and no doubt the iPhone Dev Team is also hard at work. For most of us, we’ll just have to wait patiently for them to announced something.
But the question on some people’s minds is, “so I still have a need to jailbreak?” Well, to be quite honest – it’s really going to be unique to each user. For myself, I know I’ll continue to jailbreak until Apple gives me the complete functionality iPhone users should natively have.
Apple has always been known to have a streamline interface and a clean UI. But to be honest, that isn’t what “all” users want. Some want to customize and tweak. I’m one of them. Hit the jump to see some of my own opinions on why I’ll most likely still continue to jailbreak.
Notifications
This is an area I’ve felt Apple has been lacking for a very long time. Jailbreak apps such as LockInfo and Intelliscreen have been great stand-ins for functionality that should already be present. I’m personally not a huge fan of Android or WebOS but their notification systems are far superior to that on the iPhone. I don’t even think I’d call what Apple currently offers a notification system at all. I can’t even tell if I have an e-mail without sliding to unlock my phone. Even apps like Notifier, which is free, will show if I have new e-mails, missed calls, voicemails, or texts in the status bar by the battery indicator. Even that’s a better solution than what Apple has implemented.
If you get a text, then a Twitter push notification, then a Beejive push notification, the only thing you’ll see is the Beejive notification until you unlock your phone and see new badges. To me, this isn’t a solution at all. When it comes to notifications – BlackBerry, Android, and WebOS still blow the iPhone out of the water.
Texting
Now this is an area I’m not too sure about yet. I’ll have to use iOS4 for a while before I decide whether or not fast app switching can solve texting being so intrusive. My biggest peeve about texting is that if I’m doing something such as reading RSS feeds or playing a game and receive a text, I have 2 options, close it out (and I’ll then forget about it because it removes the badge), or click Reply and leave what I’m doing to respond. It’s been rather annoying and it’s one of the main reasons I continue to jailbreak. Jailbroken apps like QuickReply and iRealSMS solve this problem.
Customization
Sure, Apple allows us to change our wallpaper in iOS4. It’s a step in the right direction, but nowhere near what I’d like to see. What about custom fonts and color schemes? Would it really be that hard to allow us to change the colors of chat bubbles? Anyone else get tired of gray and green? I know I do. Theming and customizing was one of the very first reasons I jailbroke my iPhone. That was in December of 2007 on the first gen.
Conclusion
Another thing you have to keep in mind is the jailbreak community has somewhat been borrowed from. A lot of the ideas that come out of jailbreakers somehow end up in a future OS in some form or another. The biggest thing that comes to mind is the App Store. If you want to be technical, Cydia really “was” the first mobile app store. The first gen iPhone came with stock apps and no more. Cydia supplemented that. I remember downloading games and apps before the app store even existed. And coincidentally, if you had more than 1 page of apps, you got dots on the bottom of your home screen so you could flip through pages. Does that sound familiar to you? It should. Apple implemented it in OS 2.0 back in 2008.
Everyone has their own opinion on jailbreaking, but to me, Apple still leaves something to be desired. As long as there are young creative minds out there willing to step up and come up with innovative ideas to solve those problems, I’ll continue to jailbreak and support them. Thoughts?
In lieu of iOS4 and iPhone 4 next week, we know a lot of you will be upgrading to either a new OS or new hardware altogether. Those of you that jailbreak may find backing up your jailbroken apps a lot easier than reinstalling everything once you re-jailbreak. Now keep in mind, I wouldn’t suggest upgrading if you’re unlocked as unlocks are never a sure thing until they’re released. But if you’re just jailbreaking, we’re already aware of a working jailbreak that’s ready for iOS4. Given nothing changes, this should ease your transition.
Before we proceed, one more warning; as with any OS upgrade on iDevices, not all apps will be compatible immediately. We saw this with 3.0 with things such as custom keyboards not working. This may very well be the case again, so if you have jailbreak apps you just can’t live without, make SURE they’ll be compatible with iOS4 before you upgrade. Now hit the jump for Cydia and Rock back-up walkthroughs!
Cydia
Now Cydia is a little bit more complicated than Rock, but a lot of users much prefer Cydia, so we’ll cover this one first. It’s still a pretty easy process. To backup your jailbroken apps via Cydia, you’ll need to download a free app called Aptbackup.
Once you’ve got Aptbackup installed, you’ll see this icon on your homescreen:
Tap that icon and you’ll see 2 buttons, backup and restore. Before you upgrade or do anything, click backup.
After you do this, you’ll need to sync with iTunes. This will allow Aptbackup to sync your jailbroken apps to your PC/Mac. After you’ve done this you are okay to go ahead and install iOS4. After your install is finished, go ahead and sync/backup with iTunes.
Once you’ve restored from your backup in iTunes, go ahead and re-jailbreak. Then go into Cydia and re-download Aptbackup. This time you’ll click the restore button. This will restore all your jailbreak apps. Easy enough, right? Now lets cover Rock users…
Rock
Rock’s process is dead simple. Every Rock user should already have a Rock ID, if you don’t, you’ll need to get one in order to save backups to it, so that after a new OS install or restore, you can just sign into your ID and have your backups waiting. After you’ve saved everything to your Rock ID, you can do your restore. After you re-jailbreak and install Rock, you’ll just sign in and click on your settings tab like below:
You’re going to want to click Settings and scroll down a ways. You’ll see app backup options. Now before you start installing a new OS, you need to make sure Rock is actually making backups for you. The option to save packages to your Rock ID should always be checked. If it isn’t, check it and make SURE you have a backup if you’re using Rock.
All you’re going to do here is choose “Restore from Backup” – you’ll then be presented with however many backups you have saved to your Rock ID. I normally choose the most recent under most circumstances.
That’s pretty much it! Rock will do the rest for you. It may take a bit depending on how many packages you have installed, so if need be, turn your auto-lock to never and plug your phone in, leave Rock open, and let it do its thing!
Now you’re all ready for a new jailbreak on iOS4! Questions, comments? Leave ‘em below!
iOS 4 Jailbreak and unlock has been released by the iPhone Dev-Team — but read this before upgrading!
Alright kiddies, you’ve been asking for it, so here it is. The Dev Team has officially announced their jailbreak and unlock for iOS4.
There’s a few caveats though, you must:
Own a Mac (if you’re a 3GS user, there is a windows solution for 3G users)
NOT have jailbroken previously with Spirit
Have a previously jailbroken device
If you have never jailbroken before and have upgraded to iOS4, you’re out of luck (for now). If you’re currently still jailbroken on 3.1.2 (haven’t used Spirit on 3.1.3), you’re good to go. Most of the reason is that the exploit Spirit used on 3.1.3 has been patched. This will also leave out 3GS users with newer basebands that came stock on 3.1.3. If you’re an unlocker, once you are jailbroken on iOS4, you can proceed to using ultrasn0w in order to unlock your baseband. It will work on ALL versions of basebands, not just old.
Questions about upgrading or whether your device is okay? Check out the Dev Team’s blog before doing anything! And if you’re wary, we’d recommend staying away. I’d assume a PC version will follow. When that will happen is anyone’s guess. Have questions or concerns? Leave them below.
iOS 4 Jailbreak is another question that just won’t stop flooding our mailboxes today. Previous versions of iOS 4 beta up to and including the GM have gotten various states of Jailbreak thanks to the efforts of the iPhone Dev Team. Will the final release version work with current Jailbreaks? Will it work on iPhone 4 hardware?
UPDATE 1: The Dev Team has posted that they’re working on it but it will take some time (obviously).
We are working hard on a release to our tools that will jailbreak your device (or give you iOS 4 via the jailbreak train) and provide you with a carrier unlock.
Until these tools are released you should hold off on updating your device until we have fully tested our tools with all the relevant devices.
If you rely on hacktivation or a carrier unlock (ultrasn0w) then you should not upgrade until we have fully tested and released our tools.
UPDATE 2: And so it begins:
redsn0w beta has been updated to hacktivate iOS 4.0 for iPhone3G (in addition to jailbreaking the iPhone3G and iPod Touch 2G). [Download link]
As always, if you’re not sure what any of this means, or what Jailbreaking is, then move along. Nothing to see here. If you need help or want to discuss further, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Jailbreak Forum — that’s where all our ninja hang.
And when/if a full on iOS 4 (release version) Jailbreak hits, we — probably Ally — will be back to tell you all about it.
That is, if you’re planning on Jailbreaking iOS 4?
The jailbreak community offers an abundance of tools that allow you to make your iPhone fit your personality and mood. If you’re anything like me, I can be pretty picky about layouts and exactly how my phone is set up. I want all my most frequently used apps in one place, neat and tidy, and ready to use.
For some iPhone users, that plain black background and all the stock icons get pretty boring. I change my theme on my iPhone a couple times a month, if not more. There are several jailbreak tools that can help turn your iPhone from boring, to brilliant.
There’s always one problem with paid and free themes, you get what the theme developer gives you. There may be some theme elements you don’t like at all, or ones that are missing that you’d like to add. There are several ways to edit themes and customize them to fit you individually. Today, we’ll show you how to do just that.
There’s a couple things you’ll need in order to do this:
Winterboard – Free via Cydia and Rock
Custom theme – This can be your choice, paid or free. I chose iTopSB for this tutorial by ToyVan, available in Cydia and Rock for $1.99
OpenSSH – Free via Cydia and Rock
SBSettings – Convenient to toggle SSH and other settings on and off, Free via Cydia and Rock
iWipeCache – Clears your springboard cache for you instead of having to do it manually, Free via Cydia and Rock
SSHClient – Several free and paid available for PC and Mac. Here’s an earlier article that links to popular choices
Optional installs: iBlank, FontSwap, CategoriesSB (there is a free version but I highly recommend CategoriesSB over plain Categories, it’s worth the $0.99), FiveiRows, FiveIconDock (I say optional as these are totally user preference and not neccessary if you don’t want them – they’re all free so give them a try, you can always disable and they’ll be there later if you want to use them with a different theme at some other point).
After you have all of the above and any of the optionals you think interest you, continue on.
First thing I recommend doing is going into your iPhone’s settings and turn the auto-lock to never. You can do this by going to Settings, General, Auto-Lock, and check Never. Sometimes if your phone goes to sleep while you’re making changes to the file system via SSH, it’ll disconnect you and certain files may not transfer. I also recommend having your phone charging throughout the SSH process. Using SSH and having the backlight on constantly will deplete your battery pretty quick.
Next, toggle SSH on via SBSettings if you haven’t already.
Now you’ll need to open your SSH client on your computer and SSH into your phone. If you aren’t sure how to do this, read this article first. Your iPhone’s IP address is also easily found via SBSettings as seen in the above screenshot.
After you have gotten into the main file system of your iPhone, you’ll need to go into your Themes folder. The easiest way to do this is with the shortcuts in the main directory. Just go to Library, Themes.
Now I can see a list of all my themes that I have installed via Winterboard. Before continuing on, I think it’s imperative to explain a little about why Winterboard is such a powerful tool. Some themes can be customized completely without even having to SSH into your iPhone with the use of Winterboard alone. Lets say for example, I have a theme I bought through Cydia, but I don’t like the chat bubbles. That’s something I can fix easily via Winterboard. I can download chat bubbles I do like, select them in Winterboard, and just drag them higher up in Winterboard than the main theme. My chat bubbles will now override the chat bubbles in the theme. That’s because Winterboard works as a hierarchy. Things at the top take precedence over those further down in the list.
Use this to your advantage. Sometimes I don’t like the sounds a theme comes with, so I’ll simply download a sound pack I do like, drag it higher than the theme in Winterboard, and it overrides the theme default sounds. This is especially useful for times when you’re not near a computer and need a quick fix. It doesn’t replace the power of actual editing via SSH, but it’s definitely useful.
Alright, now for editing a theme. I chose iTopSB for this example. This is a very beautiful and extensive theme but there are certain things that just don’t suit my taste in this theme, so I want to remove them.
These are the items I’m going to remove in this tutorial:
Splash/loading screens
Lock background
Arrow UI elements inside the mail app
I may remove or show a couple more in the video as well.
Another tip, I always copy the entire theme to my desktop on my iMac. Then I rename it something like “iTopSB Edited” and drag it back over. That’s the copy I edit. Then, when you receive updates via Rock and Cydia for a theme, you don’t have to do this process everytime. It’ll update the main theme and not your edited theme. Then you can go apply the main theme, see if there’s any new additions you’d like to bring over to your edit version, and do that if need be. It makes life much easier than re-tweaking a theme everytime an update is issued.
Alright, first thing in our list is splash screens. These always irritate me in themes. I know some people really like them, but to me, all they do is increase the time it takes for an app to load and be useful. Therefore, I remove them.
Splash screens are typically located inside the main theme folder in a folder called “Folders”. Inside that folder, you’ll fine typical stock and popular apps that the developer has made splash screens for. You’ll have to go into each of these folders and delete the splash screen PNG in order to get rid of them. Depending on what you need/want from that folder, you can sometimes get away with just deleting the entire “Folders” folder with no damage to the theme but ridding yourself of splash screens and other extra UI tweaks that aren’t technically necessary.
Again, this is all a matter of personal preference. Some people like extra UI images and tweaks. To me, I may want my iPhone to look different, but I don’t want the UI bogged down. I still want a clean look, not cluttered. This is why I always clean up themes to suit my personal taste. I figure if anything, this process will teach some of you how to find what you’re looking for when deleting theme elements and get you more comfortable with the folder systems and where to find things inside a theme folder.
Alright, I’ve found my splash screens, and in my case, since there was nothing inside that specific folder I wanted, I’ve went ahead and deleted it completely in my edited theme.
Next we move to the lock background. I typically like my own picture on my lockscreen. So I’ll just go into the main theme folder and delete the file called LockBackground.png. That’s it. Pretty easy, eh?
For our final deletion, we’ll have to find what UI element is creating the little pesky arrows in the mail app that I’m just not to crazy about. And keep in mind, you aren’t always going to know exactly where these elements are. There are a few different ways theme developers can form their file structure. So where I may put certain UI elements, another developer may choose another folder syntax. For the most part, it’s universal, but certain things, such as Icons, can be done a few ways. Most SSH clients have nice preview features that allow you to preview files and see if it’s what you’re looking for.
In my case, most of the culprits were always found in Library/Themes/”ThemeName”/Folders or Library/Themes/”ThemeName”/UIImages
You’ll probably have the most luck looking for things in those two locations. Check out the video for a walkthrough and a couple other tips and tricks!
And as always, if there’s something you really can’t figure out or find, leave it below or in the forums!
We get a lot of questions about tweaking Jailbroken iPhones, so here are a few handy tools that are free and don’t require a lot of know-how in order to implement. All you need is a bit of spare time to change your Jailbroken iPhone from stock to stunning!
Fontswap
First up is FontSwap, which allows you to change the system fonts on your iPhone. It can be found in Rock and Cydia for free.
On the main page of FontSwap you can choose to change fonts on different parts of your phone. There are certain times I have the Lock Clock font set different than the system wide fonts, and that’s okay too. Whatever suits you.
I always get a lot of requests for the font I use. It’s call Simpsons font and it’s available for free in Cydia and Rock. FontSwap will come with a few default fonts to choose from, but you can download lots more for free. Just go into Cydia or Rock and search for fontswap. You’ll get tons of new fonts you can browse and download. Once you download them, they’ll automatically go into FontSwap for you to apply.
Chat Bubbles
Another tweak I enjoy using is changing chat bubble colors. This can be done one of two ways. You can either make your own chat theme or you can search Rock and Cydia for “sms bubbles” and “sms balloons” and apply them via Winterboard. There aren’t a lot to choose from but making your own is pretty easy. DeviantArt and forums like modmyi.com have a ton of users that post up chat bubbles and balloon templates you can use for your own personal use.
iBlank and BlankNull
Our last tweak for today is iBlank. If you’re jailbroken and anything like me, you want to actually see your background. I accomplish this with iBlank. It basically produces blank icons for you that allow you to move them around like you would apps in order to see your backgrounds.
I also installed a free app from Cydia called “BlankNull” as well. This way, your blank icons become unclickable. Pretty neat, eh? I frequently reorder icons in L shapes, just along the bottom, or on a side depending on what part of a picture I want to see. iBlank makes it really easy.
Have any cool apps you use to tweak out your jailbroken iPhone? Let us know and maybe we’ll include those next time!
FullForce for iPad is jailbreak app that will automatically format iPhone apps to the resolution of the iPad without the distortion of the 2x zoom. Anyone who owns an iPad knows that all the apps you had for your iPhone will run on the iPad, and you can zoom them in, but they get pretty grainy. It makes me sad to see grainy apps when the iPad screen is so beautiful. FullForce tries to solve that sadness.
Fullforce works through your settings panel. You will see a new Extensions section. FullForce lists all your apps and you can toggle them on or off. There are still compatibility issues with a lot of apps, but for free, you can get some of your iPhone apps formatted for iPad goodness. Some common ones I noticed that format well are Facebook, Beejive, and Reeder. Some I noticed that didn’t were games such as Plants vs Zombies and Doodle Jump.
The developers have a running list of compatible apps and issues going in a shared Google docs spreadsheet you can access and edit through Cydia with a Google login. I liked the fact that it formatted Beejive so nicely. I almost bought the $5.99 iPad version (I bought Beejive back with it was still a whopping $16 or so dollars). But this will work just fine for me.
Anyone else here used FullForce on their iPad? What were your experiences and with which apps? Mine have all been good so far. Let us know about yours in the comments!
One of the most common topics in the jailbreak forums is always theme editing and customization. To really be able to truly customize a theme, you need to know how to SSH into your iPhone. Anyone who is already familiar with web development and using an FTP client should be right at home. For the most part, FTP clients are also capable of SSH. If you don’t have a client, don’t worry, there’s plenty of free ones.
And now for the typical disclaimer – if you aren’t comfortable messing with your phone’s file system and the possibility of having to completely restore if something goes wrong, don’t proceed any further. As always, we aren’t responsible for any damage you may do to your phone, so proceed at your own risk. If this all sounds okay to you, read on iPhone ninja!
1. Download an FTP client. In the video, I’m using CyberDuck, which is a Mac client for FTP. You can also use Fugu or iPhone Explorer. If you’re a windows user, iPhone Explorer has a Windows version or you can use something like SmartFTP.
2. Install OpenSSH and SBSettings to your iPhone. Most of you probably already have SBSettings, but you’ll need OpenSSH to be able to access your iPhone’s file system.
And don’t forget, at some point, change your iPhone’s root and user passwords! If you need help with this, jump over to the Forums. OpenSSH and SBSettings can both be downloaded through Cydia or Rock, your preference. SBSettings isn’t necessary, but it gives you a very easy way to toggle SSH on and off. Here’s a ninja tip, whenever you aren’t actively using SSH, turn it off. It not only further protects you from unauthorized access, but SSH is a huge battery hog. So when you’re not using it, just switch it off.
3. Alright now that we’ve got that taken care of, you’ll need to do one of the following after SSH is enabled on your iPhone:
iPhone Explorer users – plug in your phone and launch iPhone Explorer and it should automatically populate your iPhone file system, then skip to step 5
Most other FTP clients – be on a wifi network and find your iPhone’s IP and jot it down, it’s found under Settings –> Wi-Fi –> click the blue arrow next to the network you are connected to, once you have that, launch your FTP client
Click the blue arrow, like in the image below, IP address is what you’re looking for, write it down.
4. For FTP users, you’ll need to enter your iPhone’s IP address and make sure the port is set to 22. Your username is root and the default password is ‘alpine’ (without the quotes). Then click connect or continue. If you’re successful, you should now have a list of all your iPhone’s files. (Note: over wi-fi, you don’t have to have your iPhone plugged in, but I’d recommend it so it doesn’t kill your battery)
5. You’ll now see a list of files you can navigate through, to get to your themes for editing, simply click Library —> Themes and all the themes you’ve downloaded should be in there. Next jump down to the video for a walk-through of how to alter/change/add files in existing themes as well as create your own custom themes! And one more ninja tip, go into Settings –> Autolock –> Never. Sometimes when you’re SSH’ing and your screen goes off, your SSH client will give you an error, so turn off auto-lock while you’re customizing.
Wi-Fi Sync for iPhone is a jailbreak app that allows you to wirelessly sync with iTunes as opposed to having to plug in your phone. It found it’s way into Cydia after it was rejected by Apple.
As of now, Wi-Fi Sync is only Mac compatible. The developer is currently working on a PC version which he states on his website should be complete in about 8-10 weeks. If you have a Mac and want to try it out, simply click here to get the Mac desktop software, then go in Cydia and purchase Wi-Fi Sync [$9.99 - Cydia Link].
After you’ve installed Wi-Fi Sync on your Mac and your iPhone, you should now be able to pair them. The first time you do this, you’ll need to be by your Mac as it’ll ask you to accept the connection. You’ll see this new icon in your Mac task bar (far left).
From that menu you have a few settings. One being to disable backups. I did this, as backups typically take a while and obviously, over wifi, your syncs will not be as quick as they are via traditional USB connection. It’ll definitely make your battery take a hit with backups enabled as the time it takes to sync drastically increases. To disable backups, just click that little icon and click to disable backups.
Now I don’t know if it was just me or if it’s a bug but my Mac kept asking me to accept the connection everytime, or wouldn’t find it sporadically. There was also a couple times it would boot me off and my iPhone would tell me I had no wi-fi connection. As this app is in it’s newborn stages, we will see how it progresses in terms of stability and feature set. As far as I see, you’ll also need to tell your phone to sync automatically if you plan on using this app while not directly in front of your computer. If that setting isn’t there, you’ll physically have to be in front of your computer to hit sync, which to me is somewhat counter-productive.
In my opinion, it’s a nice tool but I don’t know if it’s worth $10 at this point. I personally encountered a few more bugs than I would have expected for an app with this type of price tag. We’ll see what the developer does to refine it in the coming months.
Pros
Ease of use
Convenient
Uses same familiar syncing process users are already accustomed to
Cons
Drains battery pretty quick
Must have automatic sync enabled for this to be useful
No shock: Apple has rejected that nifty Wi-Fi sync application that was submitted for the App Store. Good news is, it’s now available via Cydia for any jailbroken iPhone for $9.99. Engadget contacted the developer by phone and here is his rejection explanation.
“While he agreed that the app doesn’t technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns.”
If you need to have this app and don’t know a thing about jailbreaking be sure to stop by our jailbreaking forum for all of the information you will need.
QuickReply for SMS functions basically as an expanded plug-in to the built-in SMS app. There is no icon for QuickReply and it just interacts with built-in functionality. QuickReply attempts to solve a lot of the problems that the native SMS app still has. The major one being when you get a text, you have two options, either close the text or view it to respond. If you’re in the middle of doing something on your phone, it’ll close you out of it in order to take you to the text app.
QuickReply solves this problem by adding another button. In addition to the traditional close and view buttons, you’ll see a reply button to the right. When you click reply, it’ll simply bring up a keyboard and you can reply to the text without interrupting the app you are currently running. When you’re done, tap send and you’re done! The keyboard disappears and your text sends in the background. In settings, you have the option of changing the traditional keyboard to a transparent type keyboard if you’d like as well. You’ll also see an option to replace the view button with a call button.
With the latest update to QuickReply, contact pictures were added. I thought this was a really neat addition. If you have a picture set for a person in your address book, it’ll pop up in the right hand top corner of the text on the homescreen. Speaking of the homescreen, QuickReply also allows you to reply directly from the homescreen. Enabling the lockscreen option in settings will allow you to double-tap a text off the homescreen and bring up a keyboard to respond without even having to unlock your phone.
QuickReply is definitely one of those apps I’d sorely miss on a stock iPhone. For anyone who’s jailbroken, it’s definitely worth the $2.99. And if you’d like to try it out, they have a trial period available.
Redmond Pie decided to try out BTstack Mouse on a Jailbroken iPad and the results were promising:
Not only did it worked with Apple Magic Mouse, but also with almost all the other Bluetooth enabled mice I had. For those of you who don’t know, BTstack Mouse is a free utility which was first released earlier this year for jailbroken iPhones and iPod touch.
A Spirit-jailbroken iPhone has been combined with the iPad USB camera kit to allow external HDD access, once again proving no amount of lockdown or lockout can stop a dedicated users from getting the functionality they want.
Sure, it’s a bit of a hack but we’ve got a Spirit jailbreak guide to help you out and Time-More.com provides step-by-step instructions to get your HDD mounted.
Video after the break. If you give it a try be sure to let us know how it works for you.
snes4iPhone, the Super Nintendo emulator for Jailbreak, was captured running on an iPad — using a Wii remote to control your character. Most people familiar to jailbreaking and running snes4iPhone already know how awesome it is to be able to carry your old favorites around on your iPhone. Who doesn’t love Mario and old school Nintendo games? Better yet, who wouldn’t want it on their iPad?! Being able to do it on your iPad is even more awesome! Of course, this is only for jailbroken users.
So if you’re interested in jailbreaking, jump over to our jailbreak forums or check out our new Spirit tutorial to get your jailbreak up and running. Spirit currently works with any iPhone or iPod touch running 3.1.3 and any iPad running 3.2. Even if you don’t have an iPad, sns4iPhone [$5.99 - Cydia link] is still a great buy for the iPhone as well.
And the normal disclaimer, if the thought of the jailbreak process frightens you, you may want to pass on this one. Video after the break!
Dashboard for iPad is a Jailbreak app that will appeal to anyone who likes having widgets — like that little tiger puzzle — on their desktop computer.
Since Apple won’t allow widget apps on the official App Store, it’s Jailbreak only. You can get it free through Cydia and is a decent tweak for being in it’s beginning stages. As of now, you’re stuck with whatever default widgets are at the bottom. Actually, a user in our comments section brought to my attention you CAN install new widgets through SSH. If you plan to SSH, as always, approach with caution. Not recommended for beginning jailbreakers! I’d assume we will see some start popping up in Cydia and Rock soon. Video after the jump!
Spirit, an untethered jailbreak for iPad 3.2, and iPod touch and iPhone under 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 is now live. If you want it, go grab it via the link below.
A word of warning for iPad users:
On iPad, all this is still sort of beta. Some packages in Cydia, not designed for iPad, might screw up your system and require you to restore. Be careful. (And no, Cydia’s appearance is not final.)
Also, not an unlock solution. This is a jailbreak.
As always, if you don’t know what any of these means, stay away.
First there was blackra1n and who would have thought the next rain would bring limes? That’s right, limera1n.com is now live – sort of as you will only see a green rain drop when visiting the page. And if this could come as a surprise the site is registered to one George Hotz. Those of you who follow iPhone hacker on Twitter may have noticed a few hints that he has been working on a major breakthrough on the jailbreak front.
While we can not say for certain what limera1n will bring, we do have our educated guesses – mainly a untethered jailbreak for 3.1.2, a iPhone OS 4 jailbreak, or the best of both worlds with a all in one jailbreak tool.
We will keep you updated as we learn more about this mysterious new ra1n. Until then, stop by our forums and speculate to your hearts content!
