The now famous Spirit jailbreak developed by Comex was already available on Windows and Mac. Now, thanks to iPhone hacker p0sixninja, Spirit is now available for Linux as well.
According to RedmondPie: “The binaries and source code needed to get to work are now available. You will need some experience with Linux commands to make it work. Spirit for Linux can be downloaded from here.”
I’m sure this will be helpful to the Windows haters and Linux aficionados.
A couple of weeks ago, iPhone hacker PlanetBeing showed us a demo of Android running on an iPhone 3G. This week, he posted full instructions on how to install Android on an iPhone 3G.
In all honesty, I can’t see why one would want to install this on the iPhone besides the thrill of the technical challenge. At this time, this port of Android is highly unstable.
Although this port does everything that you expect your smartphone to be able to do, it isn’t usable for day-to-day activities just yet–I haven’t implemented any power-management functions, so a fully charged iPhone running Android will last only an hour or so.
A few bugs and performance issues remain, too, so while the phone will be usable, it won’t be fast. If you do something unexpected (such as forcing the iPhone off), there is a small chance that you may end up restoring your device. However, it is impossible for any bugs to brick or disable your iPhone permanently.
Finally, media syncing is not working, so loading your media onto your phone is kind of a pain. I’m working as hard as I can, though, and I expect to fix these issues soon.
PlanetBeing posted full instructions explaining how to install a port of Android on your iPhone.
If you don’t have the required setup or feel a little scared by the instructions, you may want to give a try to iPhoDroid, by Sergio McFly.
iPhoDroid is an app that will make your life much easier. It will automatically transfer all the necessary files to run Android on your iPhone. The other advantage of iPhoDroid is that it is developed for Mac, which means you won’t need a Linux machine like you would if you followed PlanetBeing’s “manual” instructions.
If any of you dare taking a shot at installing Android on your lovely device, I would love to hear about your experience.
This is a wrapup of all articles that were published on the blog this week.
Wow! Free has come a long way in the Apple App Store. Gone are the days where free apps consisted of simple gimmick sound boards and unplayable games. I ran across quite the gem of an app the other day and figured I’d share it with our readers. I typically don’t troll the App Store much so excuse me if I am late to the party with this short review of Words with Friends : Free Edition.
I actually was encouraged by a friend of mine to download the application. Without reading anything on the description page I did so and was pleasantly surprised. You see this was an old friend from back home and we used to play board games all the time, mostly Scrabble.
This was actually a near exact replica of the popular word game. Not only that, but after a quick sign up process using my email, I was able to look her up by her email, and within seconds we were playing “scrabble” together, from completely different states.
Not only do you play the game in near real time, you have the option to chat with your opponent (perfect for in game trash talking so you don’t have to switch from your game to the sms app to say “VORACIOUSNESS bitch! Yeah it’s a real word, 60 points!” Which brings me to my next point that this is certainly not your typical watered down trial version.
My favorite feature had to be the push notifications. They worked like a champ. If I closed the application to do something, and forgot that I was playing, it would beep and remind me that it was my turn, showing the typical push notification icon, on top of the game icon on my springboard.
Overall the game play was enjoyable, only having to wait 30 seconds to a minute between turns if the other player is paying attention, very nice. The interface was very intuitive as it felt like you were playing the board game, not hard to figure out.
The only real set back I ran into was when I tried to download Words with Friends for my iPad. It told me I needed to register the original version on my iPhone before being able to use it on another device. I’m not sure if that meant I needed to purchase the full version or just register my email.
To be honest I didn’t mess with it much as I do plan on purchasing the full version in HD for my iPad if I continue to play it as much as I had been. For not costing me anything, this is a pretty sweet app that has definitely found a place on my home screen, how about you?
Thinking about installing the iPhone 4.0 beta software on your iPhone? Think again! Several weeks ago I made the executive decision to install the new beta software on my precious iPhone. Big mistake! The beta was only in its second stage and nearly unusable on my outdated 3G iPhone model. Not only that but the features that excited me about the new software were non existent. I understand some features will only be for 3GS and later models, but wow.
I couldn’t activate my camera most of the time, it would power cycle every time I launched the web browser, and half the time I couldn’t tell if the phone was charging or not. Now before you fill the comments section with ridiculous ”that’s why they call it beta” remarks, I knew that. I just had that “gotta have it now” mentality that I know a lot of our readers can sympathize with as I have read the “help! i upgraded to 3.1.3 and lost my jailbreak” comment more than once throughout our site.
Not only was my phone unusable, but I couldn’t revert back to an earlier version either. I didn’t do any kind of baseband umbrella so of course, my baseband could not be downgraded.
Well, after version 3 of the 4.0 software was released and I installed it, I saw a lot of improvements on the above mentioned bugs. Now that version 4 is out, they are almost non existent. The best part of this version is that they finally made available the ‘folders’ feature.
The best implementation of a ‘folder’ system I think I’ve seen on a mobile device. A folder is created simply by dragging one icon on top of another, and you are instantly offered the chance to edit the name of the folder. I’m definitely excited to see what the next beta will reveal as we are still weeks away from any official announcement on a consumer-ready iPhone 4.0 download at WWDC in June.
PwnTunes is a new jailbreak app that allows you to manage your iPhone media library without iTunes. On the paper, this application looks great for people like me who cannot stand iTunes.
I say “on the paper” because I haven’t tried this PwnTunes myself. I guess the $12.99 price tag turns me off, but also the fact that you can only manage your media library (music, movies, etc…). From what I understand, you’re not able to manage applications, thus still leaving you somewhat dependent to iTunes.
The good thing about PwnTunes is that it makes it very easy to manage your music or other media files. Simply by connecting your iPhone to any PC, you can browse the file explorer to drag and drop your media files.
The big benefit of PwnTunes is that you can for example import music from your friend’s PC without losing music already on your iPhone. You can as easily export your music to your friend’s computer.
PwnTunes is for Windows only. Although it does look like a great application, I think it’s a bit too pricey at $12.99. Make it a $4.99 app and I’m sure it will get much more popularity.
Have you tried this PwnTunes? What’s your take on it?
In this article, I would like to show you how to customize your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch by adding a theme to it. This is a very simple thing to do.
The most advanced readers of this blog will most likely see this as old news but not everyone is an iPhone expert and I’ve been getting the same questions a lot lately:
By default, your iPhone is not very customizable. Sure you can add a wallpaper to the lockscreen, but that’s about it. iPhone OS 4 will give you more options and will allow you to also add a wallpaper to your springboard, but that’s still not enough to many of us who wish to customize our iDevices from head to toes.
Thankfully, the jailbreak community is here to take over where Apple stopped.
Theming your iPhone is very easy. Follow these simple steps and you should be good to go in 10 minutes.
The very first step is to have a jailbroken iPhone (or iPad, or iPod Touch). I understand that “jailbreaking” can sound intimidating, especially for those of you who aren’t very technical people. But jailbreaking is a fairly simple and safe process.
For more information about jailbreaking, I suggest you read about what jailbreaking is and why jailbreak your iPhone.
If you haven’t been discouraged yet, then it’s time for action! There are various methods for jailbreaking your device, depending on the model and the software version.
At the time I am writing this, the latest iPhone firmware is 3.1.3 and can be jailbroken with a tool called Spirit in less then 1 minute (see Spirit tutorial here).
To make sure you are using the latest jailbreak available, please visit this page and search for your device model and firmware version, then use the relevant jailbreak tool.
After jailbreaking your iPhone, you will have a new application called “Cydia” on your spingboard. Cydia is like the App Store for jailbreak apps.
Once you have jailbroken your iPhone, we can go to the next step.
In Cydia (the new app that was installed when you jailbroke your iDevice), search for WinterBoard.
WinterBoard is an application available for jailbroken iPhones and idevices only. This application allows you to download themes and to activate and manage them on your iPhone.
Once you have located the application, install it. It should take no more than a few seconds. After installing WinterBoard, I suggest you reboot your device.
Now that we have installed our theme manager WinterBoard, we need to find themes. This is probably the hardest part of the job because there are hundreds, if not thousands of themes available.
To search for a theme, go to Cydia > Sections > Themes. You will notice there are sections for specific themes such as battery themes, keyboard themes, etc, but I just want to focus on the essential.
There are themes for every tastes: bands, cars, celebrities, colorful, abstract, etc… Chances are if you’re looking for something specific, you will find it.
Not all themes are equal. Some themes only include a wallpaper, some include full customization with battery, dock, icons, dialer, keyboard, SMS, and more. Again, you will have to spend some time browsing to find the right theme for you.
Once you found a theme, simply install it in Cydia, then go back to WinterBoard to activate the theme. In WinterBoard, go to “Select Themes” and select the theme you just downloaded.
Close WinterBoard and wait for your iPhone to respring.
You’re done! Your iPhone or iDevice is now customized.
Once you’re more familiar with themes and WinterBoard, don’t hesitate to explore more themes and the various options of WinterBoard. You can customize virtually every aspect of your iPhone, iTouch, or iPad.
Happy theming!
Today is a busy day for Ryan Petrich, who just released DisplayOut and is now releasing Display Recorder.
Just like ScreenRecorder, Display Recorder records your iPhone screen in real time. Thanks to this application, you can now easily record what’s going on on your iPhone screen.
Here is a list of features available on DisplayRecorder:
Unlike ScreenRecorder, Display Recorder uses little resources, you’re not limited in the video length, and it is generally much more stable. The app also allows you to export your videos directly to YouTube.
Display Recorder is available from Cydia for $4.99. It is compatible with the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3G only.
That’s an interesting find that the guys over at MacRumors made earlier today… Apparently the latest iPhone 4.0 beta hides a new configuration page for Internet tethering.
When you try to activate the new feature, you get an error message asking you to call AT&T or visit their website in order to enable tethering. Is AT&T finally ready to offer the long-awaited tethering option to its iPhone customers?
You may remember that AT&T has been supposed to offer tethering for almost a year now but is worried that doing so might increase strain on their network. That’s why they’ve been “actively working on it” for the last few months. Lame!
If like me you can’t wait for AT&T, you may consider enabling tethering on your iPhone the other way…
DisplayOut is a new jailbreak application by Ryan Petrich, the developer of ProSwitcher, ActionMenu, and many other useful apps. DisplayOut mirrors your iPad screen on an external display such as a television.
This is a great app if you want to watch videos or pictures that are on your iPad on a TV.
DisplayOut supports the official Apple iPad VGA cable (other cables might work but haven’t been tested).
You can download this app from Cydia for $1.99 via the BigBoss repo.
