Jeff Benjamin

Jeff has been with iDownloadBlog since 2010, acting as resident video specialist, and tutorial expert. He earned his degree in Computer Network Systems back in 2001, but decided Cisco routers and the like just weren’t for him. Since then, he’s been heavily involved with online writing. He’s written for numerous tech and video game sites since the late 1990′s, and has a knack for explaining things in a simple, clear, and concise manner. Jeff works primarily from the east coast on his Retina Macbook Pro, and shoots video with a Canon DSLR. During downtime he likes to travel the world, visiting the various Apple Stores across the globe. You can email him at jeff [at] idownloadblog.com and follow him on Twitter @JeffBenjam or on Google+.

Camrix: a brand new camera experience for jailbroken iPhones

Camrix is an upcoming jailbreak tweak that allows you to compose and take photos and videos from anywhere on your iPhone. The tweak, which is enabled by means of an Activator gesture, places a camera viewfinder overlay on screen that allows you to capture photos and video from the front or rear-facing camera at any time. Needless to say, Camrix is an impressive upcoming tweak that holds lots of promise.

CameraModes: easily disable camera features that you’ll never use

I can probably count on one hand how many times I've used Panorama or Slo-mo on my iPhone 6 Plus. in fact, the same could probably said about Time-lapse and Square mode. The only Camera app modes that I use on a consistent basis are the standard Photo and Videos modes. CameraModes is a new jailbreak tweak for people like me. It allows users to disable unused modes in order to simplify the Camera app interface.

‘CandleLight’ will disable your iPhone’s flashlight after a preset interval

There have been several times when I've woken up to a dead or almost dead iPhone, and then later realized that I sat it down with the flashlight still on. This always happens at night, where I use the iPhone's LED flash to traverse the treacherous terrain that is my dark bedroom. Wouldn't it be nice if the iPhone was smart enough to disable the flashlight after a certain amount of time?

PanicLock: a good way to discretely lock your iPhone

Have you ever been in a situation where you would like to lock your iPhone in a discrete manner? Perhaps someone has asked to see your iPhone, or they've figured out your password, and they want to examine your phone. Obviously, you could just say no, but if you're the passive aggressive type of person, you could just use PanicLock for iOS 8 instead.

How to turn Spotlight into a better application launcher

Searchlight is a jailbreak tweak that allows you to improve Spotlight in a few basic ways: it allows you to access the Spotlight search interface from anywhere, even while within an app, and it allows you to bolt on recent and favorite apps to the interface as well. If you're used to using application launchers on your desktop machine, then Searchlight might be a jailbreak tweak that fits nicely into your workflow.

Split screen multitasking tweak ‘ReachApp’ gets an app selector in big update

If you're running the ReachApp beta—the jailbreak tweak that brings true split-screen multitasking to iOS—you likely noticed the update that just recently hit Cydia. The update adds a lot of new switches to the tweak's preferences, and fleshes out the description of each switch.

With ReachApp 0.1, you'll find the ability to view the Notification Center in split-screen view, enable a much-requested app selector (yes!) and more. Check out our new video walkthrough, which highlights many of the new features in this highly anticipated update.

How to put the App Switcher in Reachability view

Switchability is yet the latest jailbreak tweak to incorporate the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus' Reachability view with a jailbreak modification. In this case, Switchability places the App Switcher into Reachability view, hence the name Switchability. I've been testing out the tweak for a while, and what I've found was a great concept, but its execution needs a little work before it's truly ready for primetime.

How to get ReachApp’s split-screen multitasking on your iPhone right now

ReachApp is a groundbreaking new jailbreak tweak for iPhones and iPads that we covered earlier. Unfortunately, it's not available on the default Cydia repos like ModMyi or BigBoss, so it wasn't eligible for our 2014 tweak of the year awards. Despite that, ReachApp is definitely one of the best tweaks that I've used this year, and certainly one of the most practical depending on how you use your device. Although it's not available on the default Cydia repos, you can get the beta version on your iOS device right now.

Confero: tidy up the Home screen by hiding app badges

Confero is a brand new jailbreak tweak that helps you to clean up the iPhone's SpringBoard by eliminating (or at least lessening) the red notification badges. Many find such badges, which sit in the upper right-hand corner of an app with pending notifications, to be an eyesore. Confero is a viable solution for getting rid of said badges.