Orbz is a new iPhone theme that is now available for download in Cydia. Like most themes, Orbz works with WinterBoard. I really like this theme so I decided to give it a try until I find a better one or until I come back to my original theme.
Orbz is a clean, simple, orb-based theme with over 470 custom icons, battery, sliders, and SMS bubbles.
Available in Cydia today is a fun little application that display quotes on your locked screen. This is the description of the widget by its author, Allen:
Entertain yourself and your friends with famous quotations everytime you go to your lockscreen. This widget for WinterBoard contains hundreds of quotes and each time you lock your iPhone/iPod Touch, a new one is displayed. Works on top of other Lockscreen themes.
While "entertaining" me and my friends with this widget sounds a little too much, I think it's a really cool app to have. It just makes your iPhone look a little smarter...
One thing I'd like to be able to do is add my own quotes. Maybe for future releases?
Extended Preferences is a new app available in Cydia that allows you to take the customization of your iPhone a step further. Something quite unusual about Extended Preferences is that after downloading it, you have to "activate" it in WinterBoard.
Once it's activated, you can go set your preferences in Settings > SpringBoard (note that this "SpringBoard" tab has been added by Extended Preferences.
Extended Preferences will allow you to:
hide internal apps such as Safari, YouTube, etc... Set fake signal bars, time, or carrier Display a numeric battery or wifiI downloaded Extended Preferences 1.0 and tried to set a numeric battery. It wouldn't work. Have you guys been luckier than me?
Tap Tap Tap, the company behing the Where To" application is splitting up. I think they were not able to agree on the direction the business should take. It sounds pretty familiar as the Tapulous team is having the same issues right now.
While most of Tap Tap Tap's assets are going to be split between the 2 main owners. However, they are putting their top seller application Where To? for sale. Considering that Where To? already sold for over $200,000 in less than 3 months, the final sale price could go well over $1,000,000.
Mark Milian from the LA Times says:
Software development for the iPhone is serious business. In just three months, we've heard a number of success stories from independent developers, such as the Trism game netting $250,000 in profit in a couple months or rock band Nine Inch Nails striking up a licensing deal with the Tap Tap Revenge game developer, Tapulous.
It is indeed a serious business. I was even considering creating a new section called "iPhone Business" on this blog. Do you think I should proceed?
Have you guys seen the new Apple ad that started airing today? It's called Game Changer and it features MLB at Bat application bragging about how it can be "a score checker, live pitch updater, a video highlight player".
As usual, the ad ends up with someone calling and this time, the caller is named Max Julius.
Watch the video below and tell us what you think of this new ad.
Peter Hosey, developer on the Adium X and Growl projects has dedicated a page on his website for applications that Apple killed.
This page lists every application that Apple has killed, along with the reason that they stated for doing so, and what has happened to the app since.
So far, the page only shows 10 rejected applications, including NetShare, I am Rich, MailWrangler, and Podcaster.
Contact Peter if you know of any other application that has been rejected by Apple.
If you're like me and you check the new apps in Cydia on a daily basis, you probably saw a new app called Patchulous. The description of Patchulous may be interesting for anyone having issues with cracked .ipa files:
Patchulous patches .ipa files that have a second security measure such as TextGuru or BlueSkies. This can be used for other IPAs that may come out in the future with second security measures.
I googled Patchulous and came across this thread on MMI. Here is what user ButFuq (interesting screen name!) reports about Patchulous:
immediately after installing it to 3g iphone- all cracked apps not installed through cydia were erased. it was installed through cydia.
If I were you, I would not install this app until we know more about it.
Last week I posted about the American Dad theme and today I saw in Cydia that there was a Family Guy theme. Family Guy is one of my favorite shows so I decided to give a try to the theme. I downloaded it and when I went to WinterBoard to set it up, I realized that it had also downloaded 3 Family Guy wallpapers.
After setting it up, my iPhone resprung and I had to "slide to unlock" to go to my springboard. The slider is Quagmire's face and when you slide it, it goes "Giggity giggity giggity giggity". Haha, funny.
This is a guest post from Ben Kazez, developer of iCal Events. Ben is telling us more about his upcoming application called FlightTrack.
Hey everyone!
Some of you may know me from my popular Dashboard widget, iCal Events. Today I'm happy to be showing off a sneak preview of an up-and-coming iPhone app, FlightTrack.
It's a flight tracking and status app that's going to hit the iTunes App Store this fall. We're very excited about some awesome features and user interface innovations we've got up our sleeves. We're also excited to be partnering with FlightView, a professional-level flight tracking company that powers the US government and several of the world's largest airlines and airports.
While the app is still in development, now's your chance to comment on what awesome features you'd like to see in FlightTrack!
Ben Kazez
Is the INQ1 gonna whack the iPhone? I was going to write a lengthy post about this new phone and all the sudden, I found myself thinking "why would you waste your time on something that's doomed to fail?".
So I'm not going to tell you anything about the new INQ1, but instead, I will direct you to this Business Week article for you to read. Here is a sneak peek
Frank Meehan isn't even officially in the cell-phone business yet. But already he has plans to shake it up.
Meehan is a top executive at Hutchison Whampoa (HUWHY), the Hong Kong conglomerate that operates ports, retail stores, and wireless-service providers around the world. On Oct. 13 he plans to unveil a new Hutchison subsidiary, INQ, that will make cell phones in competition with Nokia (NOK), Motorola (MOT), and Apple, among others (AAPL). Hutchison wants to slash the price of phones that let people surf the Net and tap social networking sites. The goal is to get more people to use the phones—and let companies such as Hutchison profit from selling Net services. "We're tired of paying a fortune for phones that are unusable," says Meehan.
The INQ1 has no chance to survive in this wild market. Meehan says he needs to hit 90% of people who don't buy a higher price phone so he can make money. That is a very conservative number.... NOT! Come on, don't you have anything else to do with your money? Buy Apple stocks, they need it...
Trapster is an iPhone application I was really looking forward to as I think it may save me a few hundred (thousands?) dollars every year in speeding tickets... I had signed up for a Trapster account a couple weeks ago to be alerted of when the app would officially be available and I'm glad to learn that you can get it now for free from the App Store.
What is Trapster?
Trapster is a mobile application that lets you see and log the location of police speed traps directly from your iPhone (note that it also work with other mobile and GPS devices). Once installed, Trapster [iTunes Link] combines technologies such as GPS and wireless location, voice transcription, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and SMS, with a central database server. It communicates in real time, using the Internet and alerts you in real-time of any reported speed traps in your area.
How does it work?
BigBoss posted a warning about iDontCrash, and its developer Brandon Rose.
A week ago, a developer tried to send me an app called iDontCrash to host. Being curious, and a developer myself, I asked a few questions about this app before hosting it. The answers proved to me that it is total fraud on the community. It should be called iDontWork or iAmFake. This app gave me hours of enjoyment while we were picking it apart. In short, do not trust this app or its developer Brandon Rose. It is upsetting when someone tries to harm our community, therefore, I decided to post all about this app and its pseudo developer.
What does iDontCrash claim to be? It claims to be an app that prevents crashing due to low memory. Sounds great right? It sounded pretty dubious.
iDontCrash claims to run and close instantly then putting a daemon onto the system that monitors memory usage. This does not happen. Instead, the app crashes because it is an invalid binary for the system.
Although the application is harmless, BigBoss recommends to beware of this Brandon Rose guy.