CCBackground is a brand new jailbreak tweak that lets users customize the background of Control Center in iOS 7. The background can be customized with a photo from the Photos app library. Once you select a photo, a respring is required.
If the right background is chosen, CCBackground is a great way to customize the look of Control Center. Have a glance inside as we review CCBackground on video. Read More
Facebook is finally following the likes of Google and Yahoo and will launch an advertising network with a focus on mobile platforms, according to Recode.
Facebook hasn’t publicly acknowledged its plans, but the publication says Facebook will take the wraps off its mobile ad network at its F8 developer conference in San Francisco at the end of April.
An ad network from Facebook essentially means you’ll see Facebook ads even when you’re not on Facebook – think any app on the App Store. In a way, Facebook’s solution could go after Apple’s iAd network, which has failed to catch wind with the industry. Read More
BetterPowerDown is a brand-new jailbreak tweak that allows you to add additional power-off options to iOS 7.0.x. The tweak, which is available for download on Cydia’s BigBoss repo for $0.99, allows you to add the iOS 7.1 and iOS 6.x power-down sliders to your device.
We’ve taken BetterPowerDown for a spin on video. Check out our review after the break. Read More
Last week, we posted Apple logo wallpapers to celebrate our visit to Apple HQ and the chance to eat at Caffè Macs, thanks to a Mystery Man that let us inside. Sebastien, Jeff, and I were in town for JailbreakCon and if you have not listened, we recorded the longest episode of Let’s Talk Jailbreak. Make sure to check out the episode for interviews with @pod2g, @rpetrich, and @surenix.
On the wallpaper front, this week is another blended offering. The only connection between the two images is ‘action.’ However, they were two great images I stumbled upon this week… Read More
What do you get when you combine an awesome science fiction storyline with a well-made first-person shooter (FPS) game? You get a bunch of diehard fans that will play till their eyeballs pop out of their heads.
Isolani is an FPS that just about has it all. It looks great, plays great, and has a storyline that should be turned into a sci-fi novel. To top it all off, the game features auto fire so you don’t have to waste time tapping the screen to shoot… Read More
It wasn’t that long ago that email was an untapped resource. Within the past decade or so, technology and the Internet have advanced so far that it is incredibly easy to stay in touch with people all over the world at any hour of the day. Emailing has become a behemoth that has gotten out of control.
If you are unsatisfied with the native Mail app and are looking for something to help you get to Inbox Zero, we’ve got a list of what we believe are some of the best email apps for iPhone, and our favorite apps for organizing and reducing the daily routine of checking email… Read More
Like every Sunday, we bring you the stories that were the most popular on iDB during this past week. Whether it is a news piece, an editorial, a tutorial, a new jailbreak tweak, or an accessory review, we sum it all up in one convenient place.
If you like what you’re reading, please make sure to spread the love by sharing our posts on your favorite social network.
We’re usually hanging out a lot on Twitter and Facebook, more rarely on Google+.
Don’t forget to listen to the latest episode of our new podcast, Let’s Talk iOS:
And of course, make sure to catch up with the new episode of Let’s Talk Jailbreak:
We’re social! Find iDB on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, App.net, YouTube, and in your RSS reader. Also make sure to subscribe to our new podcast!
I recently found out there is a feature in iTunes that allows you to set up an allowance for someone to have access to a pre-determined amount of money to spend each month in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store.
A perfect illustration of this feature would be the case where parents would be able to set up an allowance for their kids. This way, kids have access to a credit they can spend each month, either on apps, movies, musics, books, etc.
In this post, I will show you how to set up an iTunes allowance so you can send a monthly iTunes Store credit to anyone… Read More
The App Store app is the hub used to download additional apps on an iOS device. Out of the box, the iPhone only comes bundled with a handful of stock apps. The App Store app allows you to choose from hundreds of thousands of apps to download on to your device.
Apps can be anything from productivity tools, to games, to periodicals. There is a wealth of apps available to download in the App Store, and while some may come at a price, many of them are free.
It’s good to become familiar with the App Store’s features, because this is the only place where you can download additional software on a stock iOS device. Check inside as we journey through a detailed explanation of the App Store. Read More
As I am trying to write a catchy intro for this post, I can’t help but feel the pressure. I’m feeling the pressure mainly because I wrote a similar piece a couple of years ago when I first attended JailbreakCon. To date, this post is still one of my favorites I have published on iDB. Having set the bar pretty high, this sequel could prove to be like most sequels: uninspired and thrown out there to cash in on a previous success. This is a risk I am willing to take today.
Maybe more importantly, I am feeling the pressure because I don’t want to disappoint readers by writing the same story I wrote a couple years ago. I guess I’m feeling like a musician that is incapable of finding a different sound for his next album, you know, kinda like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sometimes it’s good to keep the same sound. Sometimes it gets repetitive and boring. Hopefully, this time will still feel as refreshingly honest as it did the first time, while still entertaining readers, which really is my ultimate goal.
Yes, my goal is not so much to tell you about all the great workshops and talks I attended at JailbreakCon this year. My goal is to share the other side of the story. The side that no one not attending the event would be able to experience if it wasn’t for the words I’m typing on the keyboard right now. Let’s call it the behind the scene story of JailbreakCon.
So this is me, sharing my story of JailbreakCon 2014. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed living it… Read More
The weekend is here again. It is time to talk about apps and games we are exited about that have recently become additions to our favorite mobile devices. With all of the new titles coming out in the App Store, it is a wonder any of us get any work done during the week.
Whether you are looking for a deeply engrossing game, something to help you get fit, or are looking forward to managing your virtual baseball team, we’ve got a list of apps and games to turn you into a vegetable this weekend… Read More
Beats Music updated its iPhone client late last night, bringing the app to version 1.0.7. The update brings about a number of improvements, including better Facebook and Twitter account management, a new Find Your Friends feature for locating and following your Facebook friends, and more.
Perhaps the biggest change, though, is that the app now supports in-app subscriptions. This means that users now have the ability to bill their monthly subscription fee directly to their iTunes account. There’s also a new Offline listening mode and thousands of new tracks available for The Sentence… Read More
Nick Statt, reporting for CNET:
Nike is gearing up to shutter its wearable-hardware efforts, and the sportswear company this week fired the majority of the team responsible for the development of its FuelBand fitness tracker, a person familiar with the matter told CNET.
As early as this fall, Nike planned on releasing another iteration of the FuelBand — an even slimmer version — but cancelled the project, and it appears to have shelved all future physical product projects under the Digital Sport helm, the person familiar with the matter added.
One might argue it never really made sense for a shoe maker to build hardware. Still, it’s an interesting move, at an interesting time, especially when you know Tim Cook is on Nike’s board.
Pixite, the creator of Tangent, LoryStripes, and Fragment, two of which made it to our top-ten best photography apps of 2013 list, has been working hard for the past year to bring some pretty interesting photo effects apps to iOS.
Union is the latest release from the app maker. It is an image blending program that lets you mask, edit, and merge multiple images into one. Plus, you can import photos from Tangent and Fragment with the original image and shapes on separate layers to create interesting effects… Read More
We often praise iOS as a very secure platform, and this is mostly true, as many studies have confirmed over the years. But sometimes, it’s not so much the platform that is responsible for the lack of security, it is the user himself.
The perfect illustration of this is when you jailbreak your device. By gaining root access to your iPhone or iPad, you start walking outside of Apple’s walled garden and actually put yourself at risk of having untrusted files installed on your device without your knowledge.
As a jailbreaker myself, I am very well aware of the risks, but I do not mind them because the benefits usually far outweigh the drawbacks, and I assume most jailbreak users feel the same.
This being said, a new malware called Unflod has been targeting jailbroken devices for a few weeks. While there is still a lot we don’t know about Unflod, the little information we have about it is enough to raise concerns… Read More
A few months ago, we took a quick look at the adorable arcade shooter game Hopeless: The Dark Cave. The cute glowing Blobs won my heart when they shook with fear as the incoming onslaught of monsters would terrorize the gun-toting puffs.
Hopeless: Space Shooting is the sequel to the first adventure starring the marshmallow-like Blobs. This time, they’ve found themselves fighting aliens in outer space. Don’t worry, though. They are still huddled together in a dark cave, hopeless as ever… Read More
There is an episode of Futurama in the sixth season called “Benderama” where Bender makes half-sized copies of himself to do his work. While the inevitable world-destruction antics ensue, it does make one wonder what it would be like to have a few clones hanging around to help out with the chores.
Instantion is a platform game that emphasizes puzzle-solving action. Players create clones that stand on buttons, activate bridge functions, and fall to their death so we don’t have to… Read More
There are a few tweaks that are dear to my heart, mainly because I came up with the concept behind them. SkipLock is one of these tweaks, and ShareLock is another one that was just released on Ryan Petrich’s beta repo.
The idea of ShareLock is pretty simple. It lifts the restriction put in place by Apple that prevents you from sharing photos you have taken using the camera grabber on the Lock screen. With ShareLock, you can simply launch the Camera app from the Lock screen grabber, snap a picture, and share it right away… Read More
Where’s My Water? by Disney Mobile has proven itself a worthy challenger to Rovio’s Angry Birds, the famous bird-slinging physics-based puzzler some folks feel has long run its course. For those unfamiliar with Disney’s puzzler, it’s available across multiple platforms and requires you to route a supply of water to a fastidious alligator.
Following its September 2011 debut, the franchise saw a sequel, Where’s My Water 2, released in September 2013 and has inspired two spin-offs to date, one named Where’s My Perry? and the other called Where’s My Mickey?.
Disney has now launched another title in the series, Where’s My Water? Featuring XYY, which takes you on an adventure through medieval China along with the brightest Chinese TV cartoon character, called XYY.
Download it in the App Store for 99 cents and jump past the fold to read more about it… Read More
Following yesterday’s release of Facebook 9.0 for the iPhone and iPad with direct comment replies and other improvements, the social networking giant today issued the first major update to its Paper for iPhone application, which was released on February 3.
Paper version 1.1, now available free in the App Store, includes a bunch of useful features that were missing in the initial release.
You can now add photos to comments, get notified about upcoming birthdays and events, follow posts from your favorite groups, choose among the nine new article covers from outlets like Fox News, Bloomberg News, Mashable, FT, kottke, Popular Science, The Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and Hacker News and more… Read More
