Anthony Bouchard

Anthony Bouchard joined the iDownloadBlog.com team in 2016 after originally covering Apple and iPhone jailbreak news at ModMyi.com. As an experienced editor, he brings more than 15 years’ worth of jailbreaking knowledge to our in-depth guides, opinion pieces, and news articles. His passion for device customization and user choice sparks his strong push to empower readers with the tools they need to explore and enjoy the freedom that comes with jailbreaking. Anthony blogs about not only jailbreaking, but also Apple software & accessories, drones & photography, and Nintendo gaming systems. Anthony honed his advanced technical knowledge over the years with hands-on projects ranging from gaming PC builds to engine repair mechanics. His never-ending hunger for knowledge is why you’ll always find him tinkering – tearing things apart and putting them back together to understand what makes them tick.

Electra Team releases Chimera v1.0.8 to fix a Sileo icon disappearance bug

Chimera Banner Image.

The Electra Team published a surprise update for their iOS 12-centric Chimera jailbreak Sunday evening, officially bringing the tool up to version 1.0.8.

The announcement, shared just a few minutes ago via the Electra Team’s official Twitter account, denotes what appears to be a bug fix update that resolves a problem where the Sileo package manager’s app icon would disappear from the Home screen after jailbreaking with Chimera version 1.0.7:

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Magma Pro, Nanobanners, QuickPrefs, and more

Whether you're taking advantage of the A12(X)-supported Chimera jailbreak by the Electra Team, or the newly-redesigned unc0ver jailbreak by Pwn20wnd, chances are you're itching for something new that'll make your jailbroken handset look better than all the rest out there. Fortunately, we're here to help with that.

This roundup will encompass all the latest jailbreak tweak releases from Monday, June 3rd to Sunday, June 9th. As usual, we'll kick things off by discussing our favorite from the bunch first and then wrap things up with an outline of the rest afterward.

This tweak necessitates Face ID authentication to access the Photos app’s Hidden album

You can hide sensitive images from your Photos app’s Camera Roll by moving them to the app’s Hidden album, but it doesn’t take much for someone with access to your handset to find the Hidden album and start perusing through the images it contains.

With this caveat in mind, iOS developer Menuska has released a new free jailbreak tweak called FaceID for Hidden Photos that adds a biometric authentication requirement to the Photos app’s Hidden album. With it, you’ll need to pass a Face ID authentication test to access the Hidden album’s contents, as shown in the screenshot example below:

Addsource makes adding repositories to Cydia easier

Handsets jailbroken with Pwn20wnd’s unc0ver tool will have Cydia installed as the default package manager, and with a newly-released free jailbreak tweak dubbed addsource by iOS developers yuosaf01 and 3bod_syr, you can augment the app’s native repository-adding functionality.

With any typical Cydia installation, users will need to enter a repository’s URL manually by tapping on the ‘Add’ button in the app’s Sources tab. This method works, but it tends to be cumbersome and exposes users to an increased likelihood of human error while typing the designated repository URL.

Thirteen features iOS 13 and iPadOS ‘borrowed’ from the jailbreak community

At WWDC 2019, Apple introduced both iOS 13 and iPadOS, each of which sim to significantly augment the features available on Apple’s mobile device lineup. But like most annual upgrades to iOS, it’s clear that Apple received inspiration for new features from the jailbreak community, which continues to tweak Apple’s mobile operating system to this very day.

In this piece, we’ll discuss thirteen new features from Apple’s upcoming iOS 13 and iPadOS mobile operating systems that the jailbreak community had first.

Quickly access the settings to your favorite jailbreak tweaks with QuickPrefs

If you have a lot of tweaks installed on your jailbroken iOS handset, then you probably have a plethora of dedicated preference panes lurking in your Settings app. With that in mind, it can be useful in a pinch to have shortcuts to the preference panes you use the most.

With the aforementioned concept in mind, we’re excited to show you a newly-released free jailbreak tweak called QuickPrefs by iOS developer AnthoPak, which makes some of your most-used jailbreak tweak-centric preference panes in the Settings app easier to access.

Magma Pro offers the most extensive Control Center colorization we’ve seen yet

It wasn’t too long ago that we showed you a fun and quirky jailbreak tweak release called Magma by iOS developer NoisyFlake, which allowed users to customize the color-centric appearance of iOS’ Control Center interface.

Magma was an instant hit among jailbreakers, and this might explain why NoisyFlake has just released a more feature-packed version of Magma called Magma Pro.

Saurik updates Cydia Impactor to v0.9.52 with support for macOS Catalina

It was only yesterday that Apple unveiled macOS 10.15 Catalina and launched the first developer beta, and it didn’t take long for beta testers to report that Saurik’s Cydia Impactor tool wouldn’t open on the newfangled macOS operating system due to its 32-bit nature.

Fortunately, this is no longer an issue. Saurik has updated Cydia Impactor on Tuesday with 64-bit support, which as you might come to expect, makes the popular side-loading software fully-compatible with Apple’s upcoming macOS Catalina update.

Apple finally brings a native Calculator app to the Apple Watch in watchOS 6

One of my biggest beefs with the Apple Watch for the longest time has been the lack of a native Calculator app much like what you’d expect to find on your iPhone’s Home Screen. Fortunately, Apple is finally resolving this issue with watchOS 6, which Apple announced today at WWDC 2019.

As shown in the screenshot example above, watchOS 6 will incorporate a full-blown calculator interface into the Apple Watch, allowing you to perform basic mathematic calculations right from the comfort of your wrist. The interface should look mostly familiar to iOS users, as it gets many of its design cues from the iPhone’s Calculator app.

iBSparkes demos 0day on brand-new iOS 13 beta 1 firmware

Matrix code hacked iPhone.

Apple launched the first developer beta of iOS 13 just this afternoon after the WWDC 2019 Keynote presentation came to an end, and despite how new this beta software is, talented security researchers are already findings ways to crack it.

In a Tweet shared just this evening, @iBSparkes flexed his l33t hacking skills by sharing what appears to be a demonstration of an undisclosed 0day vulnerability:

Cydia Impactor doesn’t work on the macOS 10.15 Catalina beta (yet)

Among the plethora of upcoming software updates Apple announced for its mobile and desktop platforms at the WWDC 2019 Keynote event on Monday was macOS 10.15 Catalina, which promises to make Mac computers significantly more potent with literally dozens of new features.

Apple’s upcoming Mac-centric software update sounds incredibly tempting at first glance, but jailbreakers may want to pay particular attention to the update’s fine print. As it would seem, macOS Catalina drops support for outdated 32-bit apps in favor of newer and faster 64-bit alternatives, and this includes Saurik’s vital Cydia Impactor tool.

Shrink the size of iOS’ notification banners with Nanobanners

Veteran iOS users probably still remember the day when Apple introduced notification banners to their mobile operating system to replace the intrusive notification alerts that used to pop up in the middle of your display. But it seems like modern banner notifications are a lot taller than they need to be.

Those interested in shrinking down the size of their handset’s incoming banner notifications will come to appreciate a newly-released and free jailbreak tweak called Nanobanners by iOS developer Nepeta. This tweak takes a no-BS approach to making your handset’s banner notifications more tolerable, as shown in the screenshot example above.