Month: February 2011

PhoneHint Lets You Browse Your Contacts from Inside the iPhone Dialer

Another day, another reason to jailbreak your iPhone if you haven't already. The latest tweak is called PhoneHint. PhoneHint lets you do a quick contact search right inside the iPhone dialer.

Here's how it works. Simply, swipe left to right over the dialer’s number display to select the right contact, then double tap to select the number. I can see this tweak saving me lots of time, especially when I'm rummaging through my Recent Calls list trying to find the right contact. PhoneHint does not add any new icons to your homescreen and can be configured from the Settings app.

ManualCorrect Puts Your iPhone’s Auto Correct in Check

I don't believe there's one feature on the iPhone that angers me as much as auto correct. It's always misinterpreting what I'm trying to type, usually with ridiculous results.

Auto correct on the iPhone will turn a phrase like "Let's go have lunch" into "Keep on step eagle." I know, that makes no sense whatsoever, and that's my point.

Fortunately for us, the jailbreak community has had enough of this utter nonsense as well, as evident by the release of ManualCorrect...

Rumor: iPhone Nano Will Be Totally Cloud-Based

Rumors regarding the mysterious "iPhone Nano" have been surfacing everywhere lately. Speculation started gaining some traction last week, with a report from Bloomberg saying that Apple has been working on a smaller and cheaper version of the iPhone.

The Wall Street Journal recently corroborated and added some details to Bloomberg's report. According to the WSJ, the "iPhone Nano" will be considerably smaller than the current iPhone and heavily rely on Apple's MobileMe service.

More rumors have emerged regarding the iPhone Nano...

Everything You Need to Know About “Safe Mode” on a Jailbroken iPhone

Did you know that the iPhone had a "Safe Mode?" Safe Mode on the iPhone has been apart of jailbreaking for years now, but many people still don't understand it. If your iPhone is jailbroken, Safe Mode will be invoked when MobileSubstrate (the Cydia support framework) crashes.

Desktop operating systems, like Windows and Mac OS X, have had a "Safe Mode" for a long time. On the desktop, safe mode is used for removing corrupted processes that may be causing the operating system to not function properly.

The iPhone has a "Safe Mode" for that exact same reason. A simple Cydia app called "Safe Mode Launcher" allows you to invoke the iPhone's Safe Mode with one tap. Let's take a look...

WSJ Confirms iPhone Nano Rumor, Will Also Have Edge to Edge Screen and Voice Navigation

Last week, we reported on a new rumor that Apple was working on a smaller and cheaper version of the iPhone (aka iPhone Nano) to increase market share against Google's Android handsets. Today, the Wall Street Journal confirms that according to their sources, Apple is indeed working on a less pricey version of the iPhone.

The Wall Street Journal claims that the new, smaller iPhone will be available “at about half the price of Apple’s main line of iPhones.” The smaller iPhone is said to be sold alongside Apple’s main line of phones, which will provide consumers with more options.

The report also mentions that this new iPhone will be significantly lighter and will have an “edge-to-edge” screen, along with voice-based navigation for Maps. WSJ's source also claims that Apple plans to upgrade the iPhone 4 as well.

QuickSnap Aims to Be the Right Jailbreak App For Documenting Random Things

It's happened to all of us, we're in a store, we see something, or some piece of information that we'd like to use later, and so we take a picture of it with our phone.

That's okay and all, but the problem starts to appear when you have more random note-taking pictures than actual pictures that you plan on keeping in your Camera Roll.

I know I've found myself having to perform a search and rescue mission for my real pictures amongst the massive amounts of random litter on plenty of occasions, maybe you suffer from this syndrome as well?

That's why a jailbreak app like QuickSnap seemed so appealing to me; it's described as "simple photo taking without saving." Does it live up to its claims?

Try a New Kind of Task Management With ‘Time Flies’ for iPhone

Creating a good task manager app is not an easy feat. I'm fascinated by innovative productivity apps (check out our roundup of 5 awesome task managers for the iPhone), and I get excited when I hear about a new, unique task management app.

99% of task managers serve the purpose of either the present or the future. Some apps go super minimal and only let you create tasks for a single, non-time specific list. Other more robust apps allow you to queue and delegate your tasks into time frames such as due dates.

But what about the past? When a task is done, it is usually archived into a logbook, never to be seen again. "Time Flies," by Absent Design, demonstrates that there is value to be gleamed from our completed tasks...

iPhone Keyboard Tweak Makes It Easier to See Which Case You’re Typing

I've always believed that the iPhone's most frustrating issues surrounded around composing long messages or filling out exceptionally long forms. Not only is the auto correct particularly troublesome, but I find myself from time to time typing uppercase letters when I meant to type lowercase, and lowercase letters when I meant to type upper case.

It's a particularly frustrating affair culminated by the fact that Apple has decided to keep uppercase letters on their keyboard's keys regardless of your actual case. That's where a tweak like ShowCase comes in handy...

Cydia Blocked by Carriers in 3 Countries

There has been reports coming from 3 different countries that Cydia was blocked by carriers, making it impossible to load Cydia over 3G. So far, only 3 countries and 2 carriers have been reported to be blocking access to Cydia: 3 Ireland, 3 UK, and China Unicom.

When trying to load Cydia over 3G, iPhone users in these countries get an error message saying the page cannot be loaded. Cydia does work fine on wifi though.

I'm not as surprised by the blocking of Cydia as I am by the timing. It seems that the blocking from the carriers started at the same time, which leads me to believe this is an operation that has been discussed and planned in advance...

Two Popular iPhone Games Get The Real Life Treatment

Angry Birds and The Incident are two fantastic games for the iOS platform. We talk about Angry Birds a lot here at iDB, and The Incident is also one of our favorites.

Both games have had great success in the App Store, and both titles have created brands that people love. In fact, people love them enough to create amazing real life reenactments of the actual gameplay...

Top 10 iPhone News You Might Have Missed This Week

This is a summary of the most popular articles published on iDB this past week. Please make sure to spread our iPhone wisdom by sharing our posts on Twitter and Facebook.

Awesome Valentine's day apps for iPhone Awesome music apps for iPhone AT&T offers 1,000 bonus minutes to iPhone customers AT&T offers free mobile to mobile calling Apple working on a cheaper and smaller iPhone model Turn by turn voice navigation for Google Maps coming to jailbroken iPhones How to jailbreak the Verizon iPhone Jailbreak iPhone 4.2.1 Confessing your sins? There's an app for that Apple to announce iPhone 5 on June 5? The 7 types of iPhone owners