I love using my iPhone to listen to music, but I can’t lie – I really can’t stand how iOS reduces the music playback volume when a notification tone comes through. This problem really becomes evident when your favorite part of the song is about to come up and someone just happens to text message you at that exact moment.
All I can say to that is… Ugh!
iOS 14 brought with it what could only be described as the biggest upgrade to the iPhone’s Home Screen to date. The integration of native widgets alongside app icons means that the Home Screen is no longer limited to a bland grid of icons.
But despite this change, many would argue that the Home Screen still looks and feels the same — especially if you still use the Today page as a dedicated home for all your widgets.
I like that I can always glance at my Status Bar to see the time or even how much of my battery I have left before I’ll need to need to connect to a charger.
One of the things I’ve seen a lot of jailbreakers do over the years is change up their Home Screen’s default icon layout. After all, who doesn’t like giving their own device the personalization it deserves?
This capability is possible even on iOS 14 with Apple’s novel Home Screen-based widget system, but various tweak developers have released different jailbreak tweaks with their unique takes on how such a capability should be implemented.
One thing Apple got right with Safari on the iPad was its desktop-class tabbed web browsing, and it really peeves me that a similar tabbed web browsing experience isn’t available on the iPhone — at least not while browsing in the commonly-used portrait orientation, that is.
Given the fact that so many iPhone users resent Apple’s decision not to offer tabbed browsing on the iPhone in all screen orientations, it’s not surprising to see that the jailbreak community continuously provides for users who don’t want Apple making such poor accessibility decisions on their part.
On a bone stock iPhone, the Messages app sports a plain background — either black when using dark mode or white when using light mode. If you’ve ever craved something with a bit more pizzazz than that, then you’d be out of luck.
Fortunately for jailbreakers, running a bone-stock setup isn’t necessary, and a newly released and free jailbreak tweak named ChatWall by iOS developer Chr1s offers an effective way to change the Messages app’s background to virtually anything you want.
Sam Bingner has launched an updated version of the Substitute tweak injection method this evening, officially bringing the package up to version 2.0.12.
Substitute is used by default on the unc0ver jailbreak when installing tweaks and add-ons and can be installed manually by the end user on the checkra1n jailbreak if Cydia Substrate isn’t already being used. But regardless of which jailbreak you use, this is an update you probably won’t want to miss.
I sternly hold the opinion that Apple offers one of the best touch screen-based keyboards in the smartphone industry today, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about ways that Apple could make it better. Perhaps my biggest gripe has to do with the amount of wasted space on notched devices — especially at the bottom of the keyboard interface.
Key+ is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer XCXiao that makes much more productive use of said wasted space on the keyboard interface by filling it with useful commands and shortcuts. These include but aren’t limited to text editing shortcuts for cutting, copying, and pasting text, a way to customize the output of key swipes, a way to rapidly enter pasteboard items, and a quick entry Emoji bar.
Listening to music is a popular activity among iPhone owners, but regardless of what music streaming app you use to jam out to your favorite tunes, one thing is certain: the Now Playing interface can be downright boring.
MusicBackground is a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Ethan Whited that hopes to solve this longstanding problem by incorporating eye-catching background effects, and it does this for the Now Playing interfaces in the Apple Music app, Spotify Music app, Tidal app, and even those found in Control Center and on the Lock Screen.
Apple’s AirPods Pro sent a shockwave through the earbud industry when they became some of the first wireless earbuds to support active noise cancellation. Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s newer AirPods Max over-ear headphones support this feature along with transparency.
But Apple isn’t the only brand pumping out earbuds and headphones with active noise cancellation and features similar to that of the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Sadly, the company limits iOS’ native controls to the first party audio consumption devices — requiring the use of third party apps to control third party accessories (eww).
After officially launching the highly anticipated iOS & iPadOS 14.5 update a week ago with support for Face ID authentication while wearing a mask and 5G connectivity whilst utilizing dual SIM mode among other things, it should come as no surprise to anyone that nearly one week later the Cupertino-based company is pulling the plug on the previous iOS & iPadOS version — 14.4.2.
Apple’s decision to stop signing iOS & iPadOS 14.4.2 means that iPhone and iPad users will be unable to downgrade to this particular version of Apple’s mobile operating systems under most circumstances, with the lone exception being that users have their .shsh2 blobs saved from a time when that firmware was being signed.
It wasn’t long ago that I shared my personal experience with using the Google Fi cellular service as a secondary carrier on my iPhone. But my curiosity pertaining to a dual carrier setup on my iPhone led to me to research several other Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), and you can probably take a few accurate guesses as to where that rabbit hole took me.
Upon being blown away by Google Fi’s cellular reception and data speeds, I decided to drop AT&T as my primary carrier and switch over to T-Mobile. To those asking why – the T-Mobile network powers Google Fi in my region, and the un-carrier provided an enticing offer after announcing its new truly unlimited Magenta MAX plan earlier this year for a fraction of what I was paying AT&T.