Could it really be true? After years of complaints from disgruntled iTunes users, could the Dev Team be working on an iTunes replacement for the jailbreak community?
While it does seem too good to be true, there is a definite chance that jailbreakers will have their own iTunes-like app that works specifically for jailbroken iDevices. A famous jailbreak developer has raised speculation that the Dev Team is in fact working on an alternative for iTunes.
MyGreatFest is going to be the world’s first jailbreak and iCommunity convention. The event will take place on September 17, 2011 in London, UK.
The conference is still being organized, but the MyGreatFest team promises that their convention will be an educational and fun experience for any iDevice user. They already have the one and only Jay “saurik” Freeman confirmed as a keynote speaker for the convention (he invented jailbreaking). So, we know they mean business.
Finding good themes for a jailbroken iPhone has never been that easy. Themes are usually posted by designers on forums and portfolio websites, and it can be difficult for the average jailbreaker to discover all of the great themes that are out there.
Cydia recently added the “Theme Center,” which aims to help users find the plethora of Winterboard themes for jailbroken iDevices. The Theme Center is a great addition to Cydia, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
“Theme It” is a new jailbreak app that aims to be the “Theme Store you’ve been waiting for.” It does look very promising…
Jay Freeman, a.k.a. saurik, has added a new feature to the king of jailbreak apps, Cydia. The “Manage Account” option was added to the Cydia home page not that long ago. This new feature allowed users to view their purchase history of jailbreak downloads through their Cydia account.
Saurik recently tweeted the news that his second new “Whole Package Index” feature for Cydia had gone live. The “Theme Center” is saurik’s latest attempt at making the Cydia experience richer and easier, and we commend him.
The Theme Center can be accessed through the new “Themes” addition to the Cydia home page. In the Theme Center, users can browse retina and non-retina display themes for their jailbroken iOS device…
When it comes to polish, there simply is no comparison between Apple’s official App Store, and Cydia, the store used by those in the jailbreak community. The lack of polish is something that Cydia’s creator, Saurik, is aiming to address in 2011, and this latest update gives us a nice preview of what’s coming.
Placed smack in the middle of Cydia’s homepage is a new ‘Manage Account’ option. From here you can log into your Cydia User Account, which is basically a means to authenticate purchases, not an actual account for login. The account can either be a Facebook or Google account linked to your past Cydia purchases.
At the moment there’s not many options contained in the new section, but it does contain a handy list of all of your Installable Purchases. This feature will make it a lot easier to re-install all of your favorite jailbreak apps after a restore…
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Cydia is a household name in the jailbreak community. Anyone who has jailbroken their iDevice has most likely used Cydia. Some of us may even know that Cydia is the brainchild of Jay “saurik” Freeman, whom most consider the father of the jailbreak.
Cydia is used by millions of people, but how many know why it has such a weird name? I mean, “Cydia?” What in the world does that mean? There has even been dispute as how to say the word “Cydia.” Little do most know, there is an interesting reason for the odd title behind the icon that every jailbreaker recognizes…
We recently reported that the creator of Cydia, Jay “saurik” Freeman, is close to releasing an official version of Cydia for the Mac. We speculated on if it was really necessary, and if it is important enough to thrive on a desktop ecosystem.
This “Mac Cydia” would seem to be Freeman’s direct attempt at the jailbreak, unfiltered version of the new Mac App Store and OS X Lion. Since the news of a Mac Cydia, there have been more details shared from Freeman himself about the goals and features of the OS X version of Cydia…
With the recently announced Mac App store on the horizon — which brings an iOS-esque store to Mac OS X platforms — Cydia creator Jay “Saurik” Freeman plans to strike while the iron is hot.
That could only mean one thing, a Cydia Store for Macs; let’s just call it Mac Cydia for simplicity’s sake. But the real question is, what use will Mac users have for a Cydia store?
Cydia was recently updated to support Apple’s updated API’s in iOS 4.2. This particular Cydia update was quite the major overhaul, and there is no option available (yet) within Cydia to update to the newest version automatically.
Besides iOS 4.2 support, there are several long-awaited improvements in this version of Cydia.
The most noticeable improvement in this update is a huge performance boost throughout the whole application. Everything is faster. Once Cydia does the initial restructuring and downloading after you first install the update, you should notice an immediate boost in speed as you navigate the app. That means less of the dreaded loading wheel and more of actually accomplishing what you want to do… Read More
Jay Freeman, better known as saurik, recently gave a TED talk on the philosophy of mobile software. He compared the iPhone’s App Store and the jailbreak mentality to how consumers buy and modify cars. He made the case for what he has based his career on: that consumers do not want the software limitations that Apple maintains on iOS.
The first half of saurik’s TED talk explains the state of the car industry, and the consumer approach to buying and modifying cars. His comparison is interesting, and it definitely merits his point about Apple’s App Store philosophy…
When Cydia acquired Rock a couple months ago, Saurik acknowledged that Cydia was in great need of a facelift, and said that Chpwn was actually working on it to make it look better. Things aren’t going as fast as we’d want them to, but there is still some progress made by Chpwn.
MuscleNerd tweeted this screenshot of the new Cydia earlier. That was pretty exciting until I saw this tweet from Chpwn who basically said it was all they had done on the new Cydia for the time being… Read More
Rock’s dead. We all know this. Saurik told us that the Rock developers cut corners and did things the wrong way. Still, Rock did do a few things right that would complement Cydia well.
Rock.app was a real experience. It was snappy and clean. It had a colorful and eye-friendly theme. Most importantly, it was usable during fetches and reloads. When Rock opened, here’s what happened: you view the home page, navigate a bit, while fetches occurred with a small unobtrusive status indicator. Once completed, a quick refresh interrupts you, then you’re good to go. You navigate to updates and the results are preloaded. The page loads quickly, if not instantly. Read More
The news fell a couple days ago that Rock Your Phone had been acquired by Cydia. This is without a doubt the biggest business move ever made in the jailbreak community, and it is a clear sign of the potential of “underground apps”.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Rock even though it had some really neat features. We’ll all remember how fast it loaded as well as its backup feature, among others. Is this going to come to Cydia now that Rock is dead? Read More
ModMyI reports that SaurikIT LLC just acquired Rock Your Phone Inc. In other words, Cydia bought Rock. Cydia has always been the installer of choice for most of us, but Rock was slowly getting traction, especially for some of its advanced features like the ability to back up your packages.
If you didn’t think the jailbreak community was a big business on its own, then it’s time to think again. Just like in the App Store, there is a lot of money to be made from applications, especially for those offering a marketplace like the App Store and Cydia. Read More
A few days ago we showed you a video of Saurik showing off his iPhone 4 jailbreak. New videos of Saurik showed up on YouTube and they are very interesting to anyone willing to learn more about jailbreaking.
Saurik gives us a quick history of iPhone jailbreaks and goes over the what, why and how of jailbreaking. It is definitely a must-watch!
If you’re new to jailbreaking, these videos as well as these links will get you started:
The guys over at Make It Work were lucky enough to sit down with Saurik, the developer of Cydia, for a few minutes and talk to him about the current iPhone 4 jailbreak situation.
Saurik confirmed that an iPhone 4 jailbreak will be released in the near future, and that Comex, MuscleNerd, and PlanetBeing are working hard on it.
Getting Saurik on video is a pretty rare event so I suggest you check it out.
[ModMyI]
Every time Apple releases a new firmware, they stop signing the older one, which means you technically can’t downgrade to a previous firmware by restoring. Fortunately, if you have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik’s servers, then you might be able to downgrade your iPhone from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 or earlier.
The trick is to make iTunes believe it is requesting a signature from Apple’s servers while it will actually be talking to Saurik’s servers.
Downgrading from iOS 4 to 3.1.3 does require you saved your SHSH on Saurik’s servers. If you haven’t, then you can’t downgrade.
Step 1 for Windows: Make sure you are logged in with administrator privileges. Launch Notepad and navigate to C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com
Now save the file back where you found it.
Step 1 for Mac: In Finder, select Go To Folder, and enter /etc. Search the hosts file and right click on it to open with TextEdit. Add the following at the very bottom of the file: 74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com
Click Save As to save the edited file on your desktop. Name the file hosts, and make sure to uncheck the box that says “if no extension is provide, use .txt”.
Now drag and drop this edited file to /etc.
Step 2: Download the firmware you want to downgrade to from here.
Step 3: Put your iPhone in DFU mode. Launch iTunes and plug your iPhone in. Press and hold the home and and sleep button together for 10 seconds. After exactly 10 seconds, release the sleep button while still holding the home button. Keep holding the home button until iTunes tells you it has found an iPhone in recovery mode.
Step 4: Now hold the Option key (Mac only) or Shift key (Windows only) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. A dialog box will pop up and you’ll be able to choose the firmware you downloaded in step 2.
Step 5: At this point, some of you will be fine. The iPhone will restore without any problem. However, some of you might end up in recovery mode again. It’s ok. We just need to kick the iPhone out of recovery mode. To do so, download and launch iReb for Windows or iRecovery (both Mac and Windows).
Welcome back to 3.1.3!
[image Life Hacker]
Every time a new iPhone firmware comes out, many of us accidentally update their device to the latest OS, making it impossible to jailbreak/unlock, or even downgrade to an earlier version.
In order to have a shot at downgrading your iPhone, you must have your ECID SHSH on file on Saurik’s server, just in case Apple stops signing the older firmware version, just like it did a few weeks ago with 3.1.2.
Note that this is only valid for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 2G/3G. iPhone 3G owners are not concerned as they can downgrade the firmware (not the baseband).
The Easy Way
If like me you are lucky and you launch Cydia and see that “this device has SHSHs on file for iPhone OS: 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3″, then you don’t have anything to do. I have these 4 SHSHs on file but it’s ok if you only have the latest SHSH on file. At the time I am writing this, the latest firmware is 3.1.3 so to date, you should make sure you have at least the SHSH for 3.1.3.
The Other Easy Way
If you don’t see this message then don’t worry, just scroll down a bit on Cydia’s homepage and look for the “make my life easier” button. Simply tap on it and your ECID SHSH will be automatically saved on Saurik’s server. Close Cydia and launch it again. You should now have a message at the top saying your SHSH is on file.
You’re good to go now! But remember that anytime a new firmware is available, do not update right away. Just wait until a new jailbreak is available.
My friend Patrick over at JAiB finally said out loud what I’ve been thinking for quite some time now. In an article titled “why does using Cydia have to suck so much”, Patrick explains his frustration about how slow Cydia can be:
Cydia is slow to load and refresh its data, so you have a wait on your hands straight away when you launch it.
When it finishes loading I generally go straight to the Changes tab, to see what’s new. Today the Things for LockInfo plugin immediately caught my eye and I knew I wanted to take a look at it.
The plugin’s main screen said to scroll down for screenshots. There’s another very noticeable wait period while the page loads ads before I’m able to scroll down and see the Screenshots bar.
Once I tap the screenshots bar I get … nothing useful to me at all. Instead I just get a page with a banner for the plugin’s source – modmyi – and another general ad, and no screenshots anywhere to be found (after again waiting a fair while for that page to load). I tried refreshing the page a couple times – but no screenshots showed up.
So I gave up and ended up grabbing the plugin without seeing screencaps. Not the end of the world, but frustrating and just dumb really.
This has happened to me so many times that I can’t even count them. I got frustrated on so many occasions that I simply closed Cydia, probably missing out on some great jailbreak apps or themes.
I sometimes feel like Cydia is like a great movie that keeps being interrupted by commercials: I can take the ads for a while, but at some point I just switch to another channel.
Saurik, the creator of Cydia is is no way responsible for all these ads. He just provides a platform for the various repos and each of them display their data as they want.
I believe there are a couple simple things Saurik can do to improve the user experience on Cydia.
Rewrite the Way Cydia Updates
I don’t know about you but waiting 20 seconds for Cydia to “load data”, then wait another 20 seconds while “downloading release”, then another 20 seconds while “downloading packages”, and finally wait another 20 seconds while “reloading data” is just plain painful.
I’m no programmer but I’m pretty sure there are some ways to improve the loading speed.
Set Some Standards
Again, I have no idea what’s going on behind Cydia but I can’t imagine it would be too hard for Saurik to create a format that all repos would have to follow in order to show in Cydia.
For example, a proper format would include the following information in this specific order and across all repos: app name, description, screenshots, source information, more details. Just like the App Store app, I’d like to be able to get all the information about the app on one page only.
Of course it’s easier for me to be a critic than actually do something about it. After all, who am I to complain about Cydia?
Well, I am an iPhone owner with a great respect for Cydia and the amazing work Saurik has accomplished. I think he is out there with the Dev Team as one of the pillars of the jailbreak community.
This being said, having this blog is a great opportunity for me to send a message and hopefully being heard.
I know Patrick and I are not the only one out there feeling a bit frustrated with Cydia and I am confident that Saurik will know how to take this into account and maybe work on implementing some standards in a future version of Cydia.
What about you? How do you feel about Cydia?
Saurik, the developer of Cydia, wrote an article last week on how to cache Apple’s signature server, which helps downgrade an iPhone 3GS from 3.1 to 3.0. Besides all the technical stuff about the downgrade process, Saurik shared his view of Apple has a company. We share the same opinions about Apple, but he expresses it much better than me, because of my poor English (remember I am French).
Here is where Saurik is right on:
I have very little respect for Apple at this point: I make no secret of this fact. Apple, as a company, has turned into a corporate hypocrisy, embodying the very ideals that it claims to be rebelling against. “Think Different”, as a slogan, has become a cold criticism of their own actions with regards to their product lines.
[...] Sometimes, it is “only” marketing restrictions: there is no fundamental reason why only the 3G[S] can record video (although the quality of the camera on the iPhone 2G and 3G is not very high), or why the iPhone 2G is somehow unable to do MMS.
Applications like Google Latitude or Voice are likewise “rejected” (Apple likes to claim that they didn’t reject these applications, they simply “didn’t accept” them…) from the App Store because they might “confuse” the user by replacing functionality that exists with better equivalents.
Our need for “more”, however, goes deeper: jailbreaking isn’t just about applications that Apple “rejected”, but is also about taking provided tools and going in a new direction. The most popular packages available in Cydia aren’t even “applications”, but are “extensions”: seamless and pervasive modifications to existing software.
What do you think about Apple and the way they do business?
