Sébastien Page

Sebastien is the Founder and Editor in Chief of iDB. Once a BlackBerry user, Sebastien instantly fell in love with the iPhone when it was first announced in 2007. Shortly after, he decided to start sharing his knowledge of the iPhone and its nascent ecosystem, which led to the creation of this blog. Sebastien currently owns 14 iPhones, 4 iPads, a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, a MacBook Air, 2 Apple Watches, 3 Apple TVs, countless HomePods and AirTags as well as a few pairs of AirPods.

The iPhone Gaming Grip

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

The following is a guest post by iPhone Download Blog reader Gavin Nachbar.

The mobile gaming industry is growing like wildfire. Video gaming giants like EA were caught off guard by the explosion of mobile gaming, and are now scrambling to release popular their popular games before the bubble pops. With that, a recent study by Gartner found that the mobile gaming industry will continue to grow by 10% a year, and will hit $6.3 billion (yes that is with a b) by the year 2011.

With the iPhone representing a solid chunk of that revenue, it is only expected that the iPhone accessory business will grow in parallel. Enter the iPhone gaming grip.

The grip was invented and released by a Japanese company named Trinity, who focus specifically on accessories for iPods, iPhones and other Apple products. The gaming grip is made out of sweat proof silicon, which is actually more convenient that one might first think. However, it does not come without a hefty price tag at $51 a pop.

While some say this may be the most absurd iPhone accessory released to date, I beg to differ. With Apple recently announcing the billionth download from the App Store, this is just the beginning for iPhone gaming accessories.

And why shouldn’t it be? While some games work well on the small screen, others just don’t have the right feel. The Wii was all the rage just a year ago, and Wii gamers have their wheel. Now, it’s the iPhone's turn.

While the iPhone may never replace Nintendo’s DS or Playstation’s PSP, the development of products like this one is a step in that direction. This new gaming grip indisputably makes it easier to play games on the iPhone, and that’s a great start.

New iPhone Concept Art

Sébastien Page ∙ May 18, 2009

Could this be the new iPhone? No, these pictures are just conceps but they sure look great!

More pictures after the break.

SmackTalk Made My Day

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 26, 2017

Sometimes, the most simple applications are actually the best. That's the case of SmackTalk, an hilarious voice-altering app that features an animated guinea pig, puppy, kitten, and chihuahua that repeat what you say in high-pitched squeaky voices in real-time. Sounds retarded? Well, it is kinda retarded but I laughed my ass off while watching the demo video below and while playing with the app. SmackTalk totally made my day!

SmackTalk is currently on sale in the App Store for $0.99 but we happen to have 4 promo codes. The first 4 people to comment on this post will get a promo code (note that you have to be in the US).

New Blog Design

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 18, 2016

I am excited to announce that we have a new blog design. If you visited the blog this afternoon/evening, you most likely noticed it. If you read this from an RSS reader, I encourage you to come see the new design and tell us what you think.

You will see that this new layout is much cleaner than the other one. The content area is wider and the font is bigger, making it easier for you to read and browse through the site. I also added some social bookmarking icons at the bottom of each post to make it easy for you to retweet or digg a story.

I spent a decent amount of time tweaking this new design so I hope you guys like it...

This is still new and there might be some broken features. If you see anything that doesn't work or anything that look strange, please let me know! Note that it may look a little funky on some versions of Internet Explorer. That's another reason to switch to FireFox ;)

How To Use SlingPlayer Over 3G

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 15, 2017

Since the release of the SlingPlayer iPhone app in the App Store yesterday, there's been much noise about AT&T's restriction that makes the app operational over wifi only. But as usual, the jailbreak community is here to save the day! If you haven't jailbroken your iPhone yet, here is reason #1,563,982 to do it...

Thanks to VoIPover3G, you will now be able to use the SlingPlayer app over 3G and Edge. VoIPover3G can trick any application into thinking that it is on Wifi even though it is on a cellular data connection. You can configure what apps get tricked by adding the app’s bundle identifier to “/Library/MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries/VoIPover3G.plist”.

In order to use this simple hack, your iPhone must be jailbroken (see quickpwn tutorials) and you must install Mobile Substrate, OpenSSH and VoIPover3G (reboot after install) from Cydia.

Assuming you've installed these apps and that you know how to SSH into your iPhone, follow these instructions:

1. SSH into your iPhone and go to the root directory “/”

2. Navigate to /Library/MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries

3. With a text editor, open VoIPover3G.plist

4. Look for:

Filter = {Bundles = ("com.Fringland.Fring", "com.apple.AppStore", "com.audiofile.Interstate", "com.apple.MobileStore");};

Now add this part: , “com.slingmedia.SlingPlayer”

It should look like this:

Filter = {Bundles = ("com.Fringland.Fring", "com.apple.AppStore", "com.audiofile.Interstate", "com.apple.MobileStore", "com.slingmedia.SlingPlayer");};

Don’t forget the “,” and the quotation marks!

5. Save the changes you just made and upload the file back to its location: /Library/MobileSubstrate/DynamicLibraries

6. Reboot your iPhone

7. Done! SlingPlayer should now work over 3G!

There is also an easier way to get SlingPlayer to work over 3G... Simply launch Cydia and look for the Tricker ThreeG application. It does the exact same thing as the above hack except it tricks ALL apps to think they are on wifi. It's much simpler than SSHing into your iPhone but remember that by installing Tricker ThreeG, all apps will behave like they are on wifi. This is not recommended because for a lot of apps its makes sense to know whether they are on wifi or 3G.

UPDATE: Jordan, the developer of Tricker ThreeG left a comment below explaining that my description of Tricker ThreeG was not entirely true. Unlike what I wrote above (strikethrough text), Tricker ThreeG only trick Fring, Skype and SlingPlayer to think the apps are on wifi. Knowing this now, I believe Tricker ThreeG is a far better option that VoIPover3G as it doesn't require manually editing file in the iPhone.

Need For Speed Undercover Cheats

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 9, 2017

Good news for Need For Speed Undercover gamers cheaters! If you can't afford the Porsche Carrera GT or the Pagani Zonda F, well, now you can thanks to 2 cheats available in Cydia.

The first cheat for Need For Speed Undercover will patch the gamedata to give you 5 million dollars in cash and unlock the top 2 cars mentioned above. The second cheat will patch the gamedata to have $999,999 in cash. Not too bad, he?

To install these 2 cheats, you need to have the iphone.org.hk/apt/ installed in Cydia.

Apple Releases iPhone 3.0 Beta 5 – Dev Team Says It’s Already Jailbroken

Sébastien Page ∙ May 7, 2009

You gotta love the Dev Team! It hasn't been 24 hours since Apple released the fifth beta of their OS 3.0 that our favorite team of iPhone hackers has already shown proofs that it has been jailbroken. And better than that, the Dev Team says that unless Apple changes the hardware of the iPhone, all future version of the OS will be jailbreakable as well.

As should be expected, the modern devteam jailbreak process is still valid. The picture below is 3.0beta5 jailbroken on an iPhone 3G. As we’ve said in previous posts, nothing other than a hardware respin can prevent our jailbreak from working on all exisiting iPhone and iPod Touches. They’ve chased our jailbreak so far down in the chain of trust, the only way they can fix it is in hardware.

One thing worries me a bit here though. Why is the Dev Team so open about it? I mean, they said several times now that Apple would have to spin the iPhone hardware to prevent all future jailbreak. If I was the Dev Team, that's something I would keep for myself. I assume by now Apple has figured out what little piece of electronics it needs to add to the future iPhone to prevent any jailbreak.

What I think about that is that the Dev Team likes challenges. It likes to be fair play too! It's as if the Dev Team said to Apple "hey, look what you need to do to prevent me from hacking your phone. I'm telling you all that because I'm smarter than you and whatever you do, I'll still me able to hack your phone".

In its blog post today, the Dev Team also warns us about the non-official version of QuickPwn:

Because there are so many beta releases, we couldn’t possible refine, test, and release both PwnageTool and QuickPwn for each of them. That’s why we’re waiting until the final release. You may have seen other “hijacked” versions of QuickPwn out there, but all of them are buggy, none of them work on OSX, and almost everyone who uses them reverts back to 2.2.1 (because none of the useful jailbroken apps (Qik, Cycorder, and others) work on 3.0 yet).

As usual, it is safe to remind everyone that if you care about the YellowSn0w unlock, you should NOT play with the 3.0 betas as they may prevent you from ever being able to unlock your iPhone.

TidyRead Improves The Reading Experience On Your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

I just found out about TidyRead, a simple javascript browser bookmarklet that strips out all the unnecessary content of any webpage, such as ads, or embedded videos.

TidyRead is a service that extracts the text from almost any web site and displays it on an easy to read page that removes all of the clutter that can make reading on the internet so hard sometimes. While reading is one of the main activities on the internet, a lot of sites pay very little attention to the readability of their text and the display on smart phones, such as iPhone, iPod Touch and Android phones. Instead, the reader's eye is constantly drawn to other UI elements, ads, and widgets. This problem is even worse when surfing on smart phones. TidyRead is setting to change this and makes online reading and surfing on smart phones enjoyable.

TidyRead is just about to become my favorite iPhone bookmarklet! It takes about 20 seconds to set up (see instructions) and it makes the browsing experience on your iPhone much more comfortable. See it for yourself with these before/after pictures:

Peekababe Finally Makes It To The App Store

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 26, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, I reported about Peekababe being rejected from the App Store because it was too much of a sexy app. Well, even though the app doesn't seem to have changed at all, Peekababe is now allowed in the App Store, proving one more time that the app approval process is just a giant joke.

According to TechCrunch:

So why did Apple approve the app this time? Well it may be because Sookie now includes a 12+ rating for it. “My rating was based on the guidelines that they have for the iTunes store. Better to be safe than sorry,” Bigio says. There is also a clear note saying that it does not contain any nude or pornographic pictures. 12+ is kind of funny though. Something tells me a lot of parents wouldn’t want their 12-year-old playing with this app.

I really like the irony that it's not ok for kids under 12 to see ladies in sexy lingerie but it sure is ok for them to kill, rob, and sell drugs in the Mafia-like iPhone games...

You can download Peekababe on iTunes for $0.99.

My 10 Favorite iPhone Apps Ever

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 26, 2017

Since the creation of the App Store a few months ago, iPhone apps reviews are everywhere. I've always tried not to spend too much time on apps reviews to focus more on interesting news or hacks for the iPhone. From time to time though, we do have apps reviews, and it's mostly the job of dannyswrld.

I've received a few emails and comments from you guys asking what were my favorite iPhone apps so I thought I'd write a post about it. Note that these apps aren't ranked in any specific order.

Tips About Traveling Internationally With Your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 29, 2016

This morning I received an email from one of our readers, asking me how the iPhone works when traveling internationally.

If I travel to Costa Rica can I use my iPhone there? Do I have to get a special SIM card - or is it like when you go to Europe and it just "works" without doing anything? Also, is it free to e-mail pics using Wi-fi if I am connected there? Gracias!

You don't need a special SIM card to use your iPhone outside of the US. Straight off the plane, your iPhone will work anywhere there is coverage, since AT&T has partnerships with carriers in pretty much every country. Your iPhone will automatically pick up the local carrier and you will be able to receive/make calls, and send text messages. Same for data (Edge or 3G). It will work as well without you having to do anything, assuming that you have Edge or 3G service where you are.

The Costs Of Phone Calls And Text Messages Outside The US

Now be really careful because making calls from outside the US is very expensive. Even more expensive is the use of the data for Internet connection. Depending on where you are in the world, a one minute phone call can cost you between $1 and $5. Text messages are a little more affordable and it will only cost you $0.50 to send a text message. Received text messages are deducted from your monthly domestic data plan.

AT&T has a nice little tool that lets you see how much it will cost you to make calls depending on what countries you're visiting. I suggest you have a look at it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find pricing about international data roaming but I know for sure it is very expensive...

What To Do To Avoid Being Charged Extra

To make sure you don't go over budget, you have several options:

First thing you can do is to put your iPhone in airplane mode. This is not the recommended option as it will pretty much turn your iPhone into an iPod Touch. You will not be able to make/receive calls and you will have no access to the internet whatsoever. This is a solution recommended for people who are paranoid about their iPhone usage abroad and want to make sure they will not spend a dime on extra charges.

My recommendation is to turn off data roaming in your iPhone settings (Settings>General>Network>Data Roaming). It is Off by default but you want to check to make sure you don't get a $4,286 bill next month. Turning data roaming off will pretty much shut down your internet access via Edge and 3G. You will still be able to get internet through wifi if you have it in your hotel for example. My iPhone being jailbroken, I use a great application called BossPrefs that lets me choose individually what I want to turn off.

If you don't want to make calls from abroad and you just want to check your emails and update your Facebook status from time to time, the best thing to do is to look for wifi. Most hotels and airports offer wireless Internet and using your iPhone over wifi won't cost you anything at all. If you have Skype or Fring installed on your iPhone, then use those apps over wifi to make international calls. This is clearly the best way to make cheap calls from abroad.

AT&T International Data And Voice Packages

If you're going to need an international data plan, the best solution is to call AT&T at 800-331-0500 and get an International Data Package which will significantly reduce the cost of using data abroad. The 20 MB package is $24.99 per month, the 50 MB package is $59.99 per month, 100 MB package is $119.99 per month, and the 200 MB package is $199.99 per month. If you're going to use any of these packages, make sure you reset your iPhone data tracker to 0 (Settings>General>Usage>Reset). This will enable you to track your estimated data usage. More information about International Data Packages can be found here.

If you know you will need to make calls from abroad, again, the best solution is to call AT&T at 800-331-0500 and to get the AT&T World Traveler package. This package is only $5.99/month extra and works in over 200 countries. This add-on will get you discounted roaming rates in over 85 of those countries. Click here to see a list of calling rates by country.

I think we took everything into consideration. If in doubt, please call AT&T to talk to a rep and have a clear idea of what you're getting into when using your iPhone abroad.

Apple Approves Baby Shaker, Offensive App That Let’s You Shake A Baby To Death

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

We already know that the App Store app approval process sometimes doesn't make sense by rejecting applications that seem totally legit. The non-sense also goes about how Apple sometimes approve applications that should never be developed in the first place.

In Apple’s App Store right now is Baby Shaker, a new app which, displays a picture of a baby and plays crying sounds. To make it stop, you have to shake your iPhone really hard, after which the crying will stop and two X’s will be placed over the baby’s eyes — implying, of course, that the baby is dead. I’m not kidding.

According to TechCrunch, "a woman who lost her own son in 2007 after he was shaken to death, brought the app to CNET’s attention. And rightfully so".

Baby Shaker [download link] has to be the most offensive app I've seen so far in the App Store, and I really wonder how someone at Apple could have ever approved this. I'm pretty sure the app won't stay long in the App Store.

Here is a video of Baby Shaker in action: