Ryan Petrich

ShareLock lets you share photos directly from the Lock screen

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...

How to patch the iOS SSL bug without updating to iOS 7.0.6

Renowned iOS developer Ryan Petrich has released a patch on his personal beta repo to fix the SSL issue present in iOS firmware below iOS 7.0.6. On Friday, Apple unexpectedly dropped the new iOS 7.0.6 firmware to fix the egregious security hole, which is detailed in this post.

Such a serious security flaw is bad for jailbreakers, because it means needing to update your device, and having to perform the jailbreak process all over again. Evasi0n7 1.0.6 was released to jailbreak iOS 7.0.6, but it's still hassle to have to back everything up, restore to iOS 7.0.6, and re-jailbreak. Due to the serious nature of the security hole, we've been encouraging folks to update, which is understandably a huge hassle for many.

But Ryan Petrich has come through to save the day, releasing a fix for the SSL issue that allows users to remain on current firmware. Ryan's SSLPatch release makes it so that you don't have to immediately update to iOS 7.0.6 in order to protect yourself from the serious flaw. Check inside for more details.

Assign various actions to app icons with App Activate

Activator is one of the most popular jailbreak tweaks available on Cydia, in addition to being part of the core functionality of several other iOS extensions. App Activate Pro is the perfect example, a new tweak that lets you assign an action to double tapping, triple tapping or long-hold tapping an icon on the Home screen. The actions are assigned using Activator and can be applied to all stock or third-party apps. Take a look… 

How to use Activator to replicate Zephyr functionalities

Zephyr is, with BiteSMS, one of my must-have jailbreak tweaks for iPhone. While BiteSMS has started making its way to devices on iOS 7 for a few weeks now, Zephyr is still nowhere to be found.

In fact, after chatting with Zephyr developer Grant Paul (aka chpwn), I was told that there were no plans at this time to update the tweak for iOS 7. So I decided to make the best I could with what I have: Activator by Ryan Petrich...

BioLockdown: the best way to secure apps with Touch ID

Ryan Petrich has done it again—not that that comes as a surprise to any of us at iDB. Of course, Touch ID enabled tweaks are all the rage these days, and quite a few developers are starting to release tweaks that take advantage of the iPhone 5s' flagship feature.

Most of the tweaks being released have a security related aura about them, which is understandable considering that Touch ID is all about security in its stock implementation. One such tweak called BioProtect was released a couple of days ago, and while it was hard not to get extremely excited about it, I feel that BioLockdown, Pertrich's tweak, is by far the better of the two.

I feel that way, not just because BioProtect came packed with a serious flaw that caused its superfluous animations to run constantly in the background, draining your battery; it's because BioLockdown is better designed, has a better feature-set, and it's cheaper. It's also from a developer that keeps his releases updated constantly, and communicates well with those who use his apps.

Check out our full video walkthrough of BioLockdown after the jump. You'll see why this is hands-down the best Touch ID security tweak to hit Cydia thus far.

How to use Activator with Touch ID

A couple of days ago, we told you about Virtual Home–a brand new jailbreak tweak that allowed users to simulate a press of the Home button using Touch ID enabled hardware. Virtual Home was one of the first jailbreak tweaks that modified the behavior of the iPhone 5s' Touch ID sensor, and because of that, it proved to be very popular among jailbreakers.

Adding to the popularity of Touch ID tweaks is a recent update to Ryan Petrich's Activator—an absolute staple of a jailbreak tool that all users should have installed from day one. Petrich's latest 1.8.3 update brings support for a single press of the Touch ID sensor.

But Activator goes far beyond the scope of Virtual Home, because you can, in theory at least, assign any Activator action to a Touch ID gesture. Have a look inside to see how it works.

FlipControlCenter is the obvious iOS 7 tweak that we’ve all been waiting for

It's been a busy day to me, so I was admittedly late to get to FlipControlCenter after its release earlier today. When I first saw Cody's post, I knew that this tweak would be a part of my nightly recap before heading off to bed. Well, I just tried FlipControlCenter for myself, and I can tell you that it works like a dream, even in its beta state, and even with the underlying issues with Mobile Substrate.

Ryan Petrich is simply the king when it comes to tweaks of this type—or any tweak or app for that matter. FlipControlCenter might seem like the obvious answer to Apple's lack of customization options for Control Center, and for the most part it is. But the tweak delivers on its simplicity and "just works" design. Full video walkthrough inside.

Cydia updated for iOS 7

Ladies and gentlemen, the much anticipated Cydia 1.1.9 update for iOS 7 is out right now, and it looks good. We have a full video walkthrough in the works, but for now, head over to Cydia to find the upgrade to the Cydia installer and UIKit, and have at it. The tab bar icons were designed by Surenix, the UI Icons were made by Kyle Matthews, and it looks ridiculously good.

‘Display Recorder’ and other tweaks shown off with iOS 7 support

Prolific jailbreak developer Ryan Petrich teased some of the highly anticipated updates to his popular jailbreak releases early this morning. Petrich, who created the frequently used Display Recorder app, Activator, and a whole host of other important Cydia releases, seems to be fairly far along in the update process if his video teaser is anything to go by.

Along with his more well-known releases, a new tweak by the name of FlipControlCenter was shown off in the video. Although we aren't able to discern all of the details by means of the short clip, FlipControlCenter appears to be a tweak that brings shortcut toggle customization to iOS 7's new Control Center menu. Have a look inside for more details.

Ryan Petrich is bringing ‘TweakWeek’ back

It's hard to believe that it's been over two years since Ryan Petrich launched the original TweakWeek initiative, but just like the old saying goes, time flies when you're having fun. At this year's World Wide Jailbreak Conference, better known as WWJC or JailbreakCon, Petrich proposed a brand new TweakWeek installment, aptly dubbed TweakWeek 2.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, TweakWeek was an initiative that called for participating developers to release one open source tweak every day of the week. The original TweakWeek saw loads of community participation, and we got some pretty interesting tweaks as a result. TweakWeek 2 looks to continue the trend, and there are already quite a few developers on board.

New ‘VideoPane’ updates adds bug fixes, redesigned preferences, and more

Ryan Petrich's uber popular VideoPane tweak has been updated with a load of features since we initially talked about it. In usual fashion, Petrich has provided a barrage of new features, bug fixes, and optimizations for the tweak.

If you haven't had the chance to check out our original review of the tweak, then I highly suggest you do so now. Otherwise, if you're already familiar with VideoPane's inner-workings, you'll enjoy the long list of improvements.

‘VideoPane’ updated with fixed Netflix support, settings pane, and more

Last night we brought you a video walkthrough of the just released VideoPane tweak. The initial release, which allows users to detach video for multitasking while watching video, was solid, yet contained a few lingering issues.

The first big issue was the lack of Netflix support. In all actuality the Netflix support was there, but it didn't work with the latest version of Netflix. The update also adds a much needed dedicated settings pane to the fray.

There are quite a few additional changes for VideoPane 1.0.1. Have a look at the full change log inside.