Cody Lee

Cody Lee, iDownloadBlog.com’s longest-serving Editor, joined the site in 2008. He specializes in uncovering the best deals on Apple products, apps, and accessories. With years of experience in technology journalism, Cody helps readers save money while staying informed about the latest trends and updates in the Apple ecosystem. Cody’s history with smartphones goes almost as far back as he does. As the son of a Nokia employee, he was exposed early on to handsets like the N91 and the Communicator. He has since been involved in nearly every aspect of the mobile phone industry. While going to college, he worked at a Nokia factory, building handsets, and later moved on to a sales position at a major wireless carrier.

Apple posts slides, videos from iOS 7 Tech Talk tour

Every year, Apple hosts a series of Tech Talk developer sessions around the globe. They're very similar to the sessions held at Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference in June, but obviously on a much broader scale.

This year's iOS 7 Tech Talks ran from October through December, in various cities like London, New York and Shanghai. And for those that couldn't make it in person, Apple's just posted slides and videos from the sessions online...

Square Enix posts trailer for upcoming Final Fantasy VI port

Back in October, Square Enix director Takashi Tokita announced that his team was working on a mobile version of its popular Final Fantasy VI title. The game, he said, will be landing on iOS and Android platforms “this winter.”

Unfortunately, that’s about all we know right now, and the winter timeframe means we may not see anything until mid-March. But we have seen a couple of screenshots from the game, and this week Square Enix posted a trailer...

New report suggests iOS 7.1 may not be released until March

Following the release of iOS 7.1 beta 2 to developers last week, BGR is reporting that Apple has seeded a new build of the software update to carrier partners. It's unclear when Apple will push the new beta to devs, but the site says a public release is still months away.

Citing a 'trusted source,' BGR's Jonathan Geller reports that Apple plans to rollout iOS 7.1 in March of next year. That means we're still a roughly 3 months out, and that the update would've been in testing for more than 4 months—a fairly long time for a '.1' release...

Apple believed to have acquired mapping firm BroadMap, note-taking app Catch

During Apple's latest earnings call, Tim Cook noted that the company made 15 'strategic acquisitions' during its fiscal 2013. But out of those 15 purchases, we've only heard about 9 or 10 of them, begging the question: who else did Apple buy this year?

Mark Gurman over at 9to5Mac has a pretty good theory about at least two of them. Citing sources inside Apple, as well as evidence from LinkedIn and other sites, Gurman is reporting that Apple also acquired mapping firm BroadMap and Catch this year...

List of iOS 7 compatible jailbreak tweaks

Ok, now that you've jailbroken your iOS device running iOS 7 with evasi0n7, what do you do? Which tweaks work and which ones don't? This is one of the most frequently asked questions we've received this morning, so we figured we'd better start making a list.

Most tweaks that rely on Mobile Substrate aren't working, as it's currently broken, but there are a few that seem to be ok. Below you'll find all of the iOS 7 compatible jailbreak tweaks that we're aware of, broken down into those working, and those 'sort of' working...

Problems with evasi0n7? Here’s what to do

So by now you've probably figured out that the evad3rs released a new untethered jailbreak this morning for iOS 7. It's called evasi0n7, and it’s compatible with all iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini models running iOS 7.0 through 7.0.4.

We've posted tutorials on how to use the new utility to jailbreak your device on both Mac and Windows computers, but for those of you having issues, we thought we'd try and elaborate on things. Here are some answers to a few popular FAQ...

How to jailbreak iOS 7 using evasi0n7 [Windows tutorial]

As we just told you, the evad3rs have released a new jailbreak tool called evasi0n7, and it allows you to easily jailbreak iOS 7. The good news is that the hack works with all flavors of iOS 7, which includes iOS 7.0.1, iOS 7.0.2, iOS 7.0.3, 7.0.4, 7.0.5, and 7.0.6 (iOS 7.1 cannot be jailbroken at this time).

As usual, the evad3rs have made the utility fairly easy to use. But also as usual, we know there will be folks out there looking for a bit of help using it, so we’ve created an easy-to-follow tutorial to show you how. This is our Windows guide (our Mac guide can be found here)...

How to jailbreak iOS 7 using evasi0n7 [Mac tutorial]

As we just told you, the evad3rs have released a new jailbreak tool called evasi0n7, and it allows you to easily jailbreak iOS 7. The good news is that the hack works with all flavors of iOS 7, which includes iOS 7.0.1, iOS 7.0.2, iOS 7.0.3, 7.0.4, 7.0.5, and 7.0.6. (no jailbreak for iOS 7.1 at this time).

As usual, the evad3rs have made the utility fairly easy to use. But also as usual, we know there will be folks out there looking for a bit of help using it. So we’ve created an easy-to-follow tutorial to show you how to jailbreak iOS 7 on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch...

Evad3rs release untethered iOS 7 jailbreak

In a move that I think caught all of us way off-guard, the evad3rs have just released an untethered jailbreak for iOS 7. The team is calling the hack evasi0n7, and it's compatible with all iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini models running iOS 7.0 through 7.0.4.

Folks with devices jailbroken on iOS 6.1.x are now free to update to iOS 7 without losing their JB. But if you just absolutely can't stand the new operating system, it sounds like a jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3/4/5 will be released in the near future. More details after the fold...

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars returns to the App Store with Retina display support

As you may or may not have known, Rockstar pulled Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars from the App Store back in September. They said the removal was due to an incompatibility with iOS 7, and that they would investigate a fix for it.

Well the game made its triumphant return to the App Store this weekend, with fix and all. Now, the popular Grand Theft Auto title is fully compatible with the latest version of iOS, and Rockstar even added in support for Retina displays...

iH8sn0w and winocm show off iOS 6.1.x jailbreak

Hackers winocm and iH8sn0w posted an interesting video last night, demonstrating what appeared to be a working untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.x. The clip shows a 5th gen iPod touch on iOS 6.1.3 navigating Cydia and running Surenix's popular ayecon theme.

The move puts an end to the radio silence we've been experiencing since early October, when winocm gave a definite ETA for the iOS 6.1.x jailbreak as 'before 2014.' But don't get your hopes up. It still doesn't look like it's going to be released publicly anytime soon...

Target holding last-minute sale on iPhones and iPads

Great news for folks who still have some Christmas shopping left to do: Target has announced that it will be holding a last-minute sale on select iPhones and iPads next week. The promotion is slated to begin on Sunday, December 22 and run through the 24th.

The sale will allow customers to snag a 16GB iPhone 5c for just $30—with a two-year agreement of course—along with a free $30 gift card, or an entry-level iPhone 5s for just $179.99 and a free $25 gift card. The retailer will also discount select iPads as well...