Since the beginning, apps and tweaks download with cydia have been a chore to uninstall. Uninstalling a package is a
seven-step operation at best: Start Cydia, Manage, Packages, (locate
package), Modify, Remove, Confirm.
Compared to uninstalling Appstore apps where you hold down the application for a couple of seconds and press the X in the corner it is a bit cumbersome.
Cydelete is the answer to that problem, allowing users to use the same method for deleting apps from cydia as from the the appstore. Cydelete will display all apps wiggling with an X however it can only delete applications that are directly managed by cydia and cannot delete cydia itself for safety reasons.
3D Board is another astethic app from cydia that gives a 3d effect to your apps by using the front facing camera to track your face and in turn move the background, thus giving the 3D effect. this works well when it is bright but suffers a bit when used in dimmer situations. The effect itself is subtle but noticible and can look exceptional with a nice background installed.
The pitch and depth can all be adjusted however having all the settings to there highest is not ideal and the effect will flicker as the sensitivity is brought up. For the best effects all settings should be kept to the middle as this means the transitions will be smooth.
SBRotator is a jailbreak tweak that allows ipad like landscape view on the iphone and ipod touch. It is compatible with lots of other apps on cydia for layout and for this reason allows you to fully customise how your phone looks. This is a slick app that should be apart of every jailbroken iDevices purchases, the video above shows everything you need to know about the tweak.
Apple devices have come along way since the first iPhone was released, there has been huge changes in the IOS, the hardware and the design of the products. However the Slide to unlock page has changed little to none since its first inception. A new tweak however has emerged that gives the user a choice of 3 themed ways of using what was the slide to unlock lock screen.
The first way is to flick from one side of the screen to another, like you were changing page on a kindle fire.
The second way replaces the slider with a band aid that has to be peeled off.
The third way is similar to the second except it is a plastic tab that is peeled away.
The first theme is by far the best and is well animated however this tweak does not seem to work well with CleverPin installed and can lead to the phone getting stuck at a black screen after locking with no way of fixing it except waiting for the phone to crash.
Paperlock is a slick tweak thats well worth looking into.
Not too long ago when you purchased an app off the appstore apple graced you with 15 minutes where you did not have to enter your passcode if you were buying other apps, however with apple tightening up their security it has now become a requirement every time you purchase an app.
Security is nessiccary and welcome, however if you do go on an app spending spree it can be quite annoying having to enter your password everytime. It is for this reason PasswordPilot was developed. PasswordPilot is a simple app thats sole functionality is to fill the password field with your password. Once downloaded the user must navigate to the settings app and then to PasswordPilot where the user enters their password. Once the password is entered it is stored and when you purchase an app from the appstore, the password will be stored in the field.
As usefull as this is, it does mean that your password will always be there so if your phone was stolen then the thief would be free to purchase any app they want. I would reccommend this app as it is a clever example of what developers in the community can do.
Cydia offers many tweaks and apps, so many that generally creativity can sometimes seem to lack as one developer basically copies aspects of another popular tweak and adds a little extra functionality. This is fine but can stiffle the creativity out there if developes are just trying to one up an app that already covers a certain functionality and covers it well. It is for this reason that Deck is a breath of fresh air, I must say that Deck is one of the best presented tweaks I have seen lately and looks so good it actually looks like it is part of the IOS itself. All deck does is allow shortcut items to be added to a gesture activated side panel. Favourite apps or ones that are most used are likely to be added here where with a simple gesture Deck is actived a slickly slided in the sidebar.
Aswell as the shortcuts for apps, a simple swipe down on the deck will give the user access to the more common features in the settings app such as bluetooth and wifi. Deck is possibly the best presented tweak i have seen and i would not be surprised to see some similar functionality in IOS 6 when it drops.
Barrel is an essential tweak for anybody wishing to have that wow factor when personalising their IOS device, its a simple app that animates your app pages transitions from one to the other. Although a very simple app, the quality of the animations will make your phone stand out from the boring stock IOS approach.
There are numerous different transitions from having the apps carousel in to the suble and my personal favourite 3d cube effect.
Although this app serves no purpose except to look good it is still one of the better apps in the cydia store and one of the better maintained ones.
One of the best reasons to jailbreak an iDevice is to have the ability to personalise your phone. Winterboard is one such app in the cydia repository that allows you to change the apperance of generally any part of your IOS. There are literally thousands of themes in cydia for the springboard (main page where apps are displayed) where you can generally find every sort of theme you could think of.
Aswell as being able to change the springboard, new versions of keyboards and background pictures to apps can be found in certain (more advanced) themes.
Here is a screenshot of a fallout 3 theme available for free in the cydia repository
As you can see there is some major customisation options available with this app, that is why with the birth of cydia it was one of the most requested features. There are many other apps out there that support themes for IOS devices but winterboard is by far the best and the most supported for the platform.
Security is an important aspect of mobiles at present, with the amount of data our smart phones hold it is imperative to at least have a passlock on your mobile device. This passlock although very usefull can also be very annoying when you are in the safety of your own home or any other area where you trust your phone will come to no harm. In steps CleverPin.....
There is a very simple yet clever idea to CleverPin, it overrides the security once you are either in a pre-setup wifi network, have your phone connected to a charger, your phone is listening to music or all of the above. I find the only form of password security I use is when I am on my home wifi network. Once my phone automatically connects to my wifi network the passlock is disabled and a simple slide to unlock opens my phone.
CleverPin is an example of what the jailbreak community do best, such a simple yet clever tweak that would never see the light of day without developers having the freedom of the platform.
Being an IOS user my home button gets quite a bit of wear and tear. Over time this can lead to it becoming unresponsive, with the ipad recieving multitasking support one can only wonder why the iphone and ipod touch series have been neglected. Fear not, if you have a jailbroken iDevice then you are in luck due to a fabulous tweak called zephyr that allows you to multitask on the iPhone with single-finger gestures.
With support for numerous gestures the tweak really does feel like a natural part of the IOS, to pull up the multitasking tray all you have to do is swipe up from the bottom of the screen. It feels so natural that it might be another cydia tweak that finds its way to being part of the IOS.
Zephyr is available now from the cydia store for iphone and ipod touch.
I suppose to start off one of the best jailbroken apps I have come across is a security app called cylay. It offers all the features that were offered with mobileme when it was first launched and some!
Probably one of the most impressive and frightening features is the ability to take a picture from either camera on the phone without alerting whomever is using the phone that a photo has been taken. This has obvious security benifits and is generally awesome. There are a range of other features such as preventing shutdown which makes the phone mimic being turned off, sms forwarding and the ability to back up all data on the phone, obviously tracking the phone aswell asa range of other features.
This app works on a subscription basis with the user needing to log onto www.cylay.com and paying an annual subscription of $20.00. For the security it provides $20.00 is well worth the piece of mind in my opinion.
The title seems a bit fitting since this is my first attempt at a blog, I have been an iPhone user since day one basically. I got the first iPhone in America and as a result when I came home to Ireland I was unable to use it as a phone as it was network locked. This was obviously not ideal but I was still in awe of the technology I was now the proud owner of, back then the IOS experience wasn't as vibrant and as varied as it is now and touch screen phones were unheard of.
Waiting patiently for a solution to my network problem, progress had started to be made on extending the capabilities of the iPhone beyond the stock features. It was through this progress that my phone was given its freedom as I used a program to unlock the baseband and allow me the freedom to choose networks. This was the start of my love for jailbreaking and where unlocking the phone was my main reason for it, it was the possibilities that releasing the shackles apple had on my phone that has kept my IOS devices jailbroken since that moment.
The jailbroken IOS experience adds many more features and possibilities to the IOS device, these tweaks as they're called are features on my iDevices that I could not live without. I will be explaining some of these tweaks and why I love them so much in the coming weeks, but there are huge amounts tweaks out there so to you I would just say "get jailbreaking!!!!!".
