A few weeks ago I wrote an article about why Cydia sucks and how it could be improved. Maybe Saurik heard me because he decided to give Cydia a small update that aims at making it faster.
This update supposedly speeds up the loading time and improves the error checking when refreshing the sources.
I installed the update but unfortunately, I didn’t see much improvement in speed. Hopefully, you’ll get better luck than I did…
Have you installed the update yet? Does it feel like Cydia is faster?
When the iPhone initially launched in 2007, the much anticipated iPhone OS required an arsenal of jailbroken apps to perform even the mildest tasks such as MMS and video recording. But through product refreshes and several software updates, that list of apps is shrinking and the iPhone OS is now considered among the industries top mobile platforms.
Now that functions such as copy/paste and video recording are available in the stock OS, jailbroken applications like Clippy and Cycorder are no longer necessities. Now I know your thinking, “So what are you saying Cody, I no longer ‘need’ to jailbreak my iPhone?” Not even close.
As long as Apple continues to disable users from customizing their springboard backgrounds and their icons, and of course forcing them to remain with AT&T even though other carriers get far better coverage in their home area, and continue to ignore several other missing features, iPhone users will have a reason to jailbreak. One app I continue to jailbreak for, because you can only get it from Cydia, is SBSettings.
Now let me explain. The feature I think Apple continues to miss the boat on is shortcuts. If I want to turn my bluetooth on, it is a 4 step process, 5 if you count the unlock screen. Same with changing the brightness, it’s a 4 or 5 step process. Other mobile platform developers have addressed the need for shortcuts to commonly used functions in the form of widgets or shortcuts in an always on screen task bar, but for some reason Apple resists.
Enter SBSettings By Big Boss. A simple, skinnable device manager that’s actually been around for quite a while. The application and themes for it can be searched for and downloaded from the Cydia App Store, so of course it’s available to jailbreakers only.
The first thing you’ll notice about SBSettings is how easily and quickly it launches once installed. Requiring nothing more than a finger slide across the top banner, the application drops down in the form of a window with several icons. Now the default theme is gaudy but I found it was easy to install downloaded themes by clicking the ‘more’ icon you see in the image below.
The theme I use is ‘iPhone Congruency’ and I love it because it looks stock, like it is supposed to be there. Once you got it looking good, again from the ‘more’ icon, you need to decide which ‘toggle’ icons are showing. If you don’t see a toggle you want, more can be downloaded through Cydia, and can be added in this same ‘toggle’ screen once downloaded.
I personally like the ‘processes’ toggle. Although the iPhone isn’t known for having great multitasking capabilities, the phone can still get bogged down with Mail, SMS, iPod, and Safari apps all open at once. The ‘processes’ toggle lets you shut these apps down and give your iPhone a quick boost in recovered RAM.
With toggles to turn bluetooth and wifi off and on with one touch, this app is definitely a time saver. It also gives you other great features like a quick launch App dock to launch apps from instead of scrolling through all of your icon-loaded spring boards, and the ability to re spring (or restart your iPhone, once again with one or 2 touches instead of 5 and 6 touches.
Between the time saving shortcuts, ease of use, and the fact that I can make it blend in with the rest of the phone’s GUI with a quick skin download, this free app from BIG BOSS available from Cydia is a must have in my opinion.
Hopefully Apple will stumble across this little gem at some point and really take the idea of ‘widgets’ and ’shortcuts’ more seriously. It would really be nice to see some sort of implementation of Apple’s popular dashboard widget screen get ported to their mobile devices. But for right now we must use the tools we have in front of us, and with apps floating around like SBSettings, maybe thats not such a bad thing. ;op
For those of you who missed some of this week’s articles, here is a recap:
Chpwn is one of my favorite jailbreak devs because he creates really useful apps and mods that just make your iPhone experience better. He worked with Ryan Petrich on ProSwitcher, he developed InfiniDock, and today, he just released InfiniBoard. InfiniBoard is a jailbreak application that simply brings vertical scrolling to your iPhone springboard. It lets you add as many icons as you wish to any page, and access them by flicking up and down. I’ve played with InfiniBoard for about an hour now and it works as described. The way I went about it is that instead of moving my icons one by one to a page, I used MultiIconMover to move all my icons at once. It saved me lots of time. On the springboard, I left my first and second page of apps with 12 icons per page. These are the apps I use the most and I wanted to keep part of my springboard “clean”. On the third page, I added every other application so I can just browse through them by scrolling vertically.
I’ll have to test InfiniBoard on a longer period of time to figure out if I like it or not. So far, I think it’s worth the $1.99. What do you think?
Even though Netflix CEO Reed Hastings told Reuters a few months ago that Netflix wasn’t going to work on an iPhone app for a while, it seems that Netflix has been feeling the water about it. A RWW article notes that:
Recently, Netflix sent out a survey to select subscribers in order to determine interest in an iPhone application for streaming movies via mobile phones. According to the survey’s wording, the proposed app would be Wi-Fi only and would offer the same content that the Netflix “Watch Instantly” service provides.
Hacking Netflix has the full text of the survey:
Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their iPhone. The selection availability to instantly watch includes some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes. There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.
Whenever you want to instantly watch content on your iPhone, your iPhone must be connected to a Wi-Fi network (such as one you might have at home or at work, or in public places like coffee shops, book stores, hotels, airports, etc.)
If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?
As a long-time Netflix customer, I have to say that I’ve been waiting for an iPhone app pretty much since the iPhone came out. It does make sense for Netflix to be present on mobile devices, especially the iPhone.
Now there are two problems. First issue is technological. Flash is not going to happen, so what technology could Netflix use to make itself available on the iPhone? Well apparently, Microsoft has been working with Apple on porting Silverlight to the iPhone and it seems to be working well. That would be a solution. I personally think Netflix would develop its own format but it’s just a guess.
The second problem facing Netflix is… Apple itself. Would Apple allow video streaming when it has the same plans in mind for iTunes? While I doubt Apple will be particularly excited about having a Netflix app, I believe it will have to allow it in the App Store to avoid being taught a lesson by the FTC.
At any rates, I’m very excited about having Netflix on my iPhone. You know what? I’m even more excited about having Netflix on my iPad!
What say you?
The other day someone asked me how I got into the iPhone, which took me back to 2007 and the day this little piece of electronics completely changed my life.
I wasn’t in line at the Apple Store when the iPhone came out in 2007. I actually didn’t care much about it. That was until my best friend bought an iPhone.
The first day I actually got to play with my friend’s iPhone, I really fell in love with it. I loved the design and how it fit in my hands. I was so impressed that just about 5 minutes after playing with it, I got up and told my friend “hey, I’m going to the AT&T store, I’ll be right back”.
I came back to my friend’s house an hour later with my brand new iPhone. That was probably the quickest buying decision I ever made, considering the price of this product.
The first day I bought my first iPhone, I literally spent hours just looking at it. I thought it was the most beautiful thing ever designed. To this date, even though the first gen iPhone is completely outdated, I still think it was a radical design that changed the way we’ll look at phones forever.
Mind you, I bought my first iPhone about a month after it first came out. The following year, I was in line at a local AT&T store. Last year, I got smarter and pre-ordered my iPhone 3GS. I didn’t live the “whole experience” of waiting in line for it, but at least… I didn’t have to wait in line for hours…
Do you remember the first day you had your iPhone? Was it a very particular moment or just another day?
Photo Credit: iPhone Savior
Back in December I tweeted about a new app called TUN3R, a sort of visual dial for Internet Radio. The app is interesting if you like Internet radio, but doesn’t really go beyond that. The same folks have just released another application called Milk Crater which they claim to be the world’s first real-time audio iPod browser. Okay, but how does it actually work?
Milk Crater generates a large grid created from your iPod collection. It uses cover art to generate the tiles, or if no cover art is available for a song, then it uses the song title.
The first time you run the app, it starts a “Dial Rebuild” process which can take anywhere from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes. It does this in order to generate a giant “dial” (which is more like a grid of cover art and song titles). This is where the fun begins. After generating this “dial”, you can move around it by sliding your fingers.
What really sets Milk Crater apart from other music apps (including the iPod app itself) is the fact that it switches audio in real-time as you slip and slide around the grid with your fingers.
Once you get the hang of it, you can start doing more interesting things like building playlists on-the-fly as you browse. It’s also possible to export these playlists back into your iPod, through an e-mail export (the only way possible).
Another worthwhile feature is its search capability, which begins highlighting results on the “dial” as you type.
At this point, it’s tough to say if it will replace the iPod app itself, but it may give it a run for its $1.99.
These are actually my favorite apps of February but I’m a little late…
Power Downloader [iTunes link] – This is a free app that lets you download a host of files to your iPhone like JPG, GIF, HTML, MP3, MP4, 3GP and more. But, what I like to use it for is downloading YouTube videos for later viewing at full resolution. However, you can only watch the video from within the app and there’s no way to get the video off your iPhone. Obviously, Apple wouldn’t have an app that would pirate YouTube videos. Since YouTube videos don’t stream on 3G at full resolution on the iPhone, this helps to watch your videos more cleanly. There doesn’t seem to be a size limit when downloading on 3G.
Which location-based app has more than double the amount of users of Foursquare and Gowalla combined and is free? If the answer is MyTown [iTunes link] you’d be correct! Unlike other location-sharing apps, MyTown plays much more like a real game. When you check in to places, you have the option of buying them for your virtual town. The properties you buy give you constant income and to upgrade them you need money. To level up, you need points and you get that by checking in to more places. I have to admit I’m kind of addicted to this. However, the GPS locating on this app is not very good and I have to type in my location most of the time.
I used Beejive for the longest time to instant message on my iPhone. I loved it for the most part but the app loading time was horrendous. Plus, I paid $9.99 for the app. Then came Meebo [iTunes link]. It’s free and I believe it does load a little faster than Beejive. I’m sure it’s even more magnified for me since I have the older 3G. 3GS users may or may not see that much of a difference. Sure, Beejive has a lot more features. But, I don’t use most of them. I just want to IM. Meebo supports push notifications and when you bring up Meebo on your desktop, push notifications are disabled on your iPhone. Nice touch.
Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock [iTunes link] – Apparently, we sleep in cycles of light and deep sleep. Every night, we set our alarm to go off at a certain time in the morning but many times it is when we are in a deep sleep cycle. So, we’re very groggy when it’s time to get up. The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock is app designed to change that. The app will sound a soothing alarm when you’re in a light sleep cycle and then you can gradually get up. Just as a warning, sometimes your light sleep cycle could come 30 minutes before you actually want to get up. The accelerometer tracks the movement on your bed and knows if you’re in a light or deep sleep cycle. So, yes, you will have to sleep with your iPhone on your bed. And, yes, I have knocked my iPhone off my bed a couple of times. What I really like the $.99 app for is tracking how long I’m in light and deep sleep. I posted a sample of one of my night’s sleep. I have a lot of peaks and valleys. I am a light sleeper.
What are your favorite apps of the month?
I’m curious to see what App Store or stock apps you use on a daily basis.
Here are my 5 most used apps, in no specific order:
I usually don’t use the camera app much but since I started traveling a few months ago, I now use it several times a day.
Please take a few seconds to share your most used apps by leaving a comment.
As my fiancee and I are a few minutes away from boarding a flight to Cambodia, I’m freaking out at the idea that I might not be able to get a data plan for my iPhone over there.
I’ve been doing a little bit of research online and the information I got is not reassuring. Apparently you have to be a Cambodian citizen to be able to buy a SIM card. Not much of a problem as you can always pay someone to go get a SIM card for you.
The real bad news for me is that it seems you only get coverage in larger cities.
I’ve been expressing my concern to my fiancee about this several times during the past day and I think she’s getting over it. Today she said to me: “you’re nothing without your iPhone, aren’t you?”
It made me think about it for a minute and I came to realize that it’s not really my iPhone that I need most, it’s the mobile Internet access I get anywhere, anytime.
So no, I am not nothing without my iPhone. However, I’m totally miserable without a connection to the Internet that fits in my pocket.
Do you feel the same?
