Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has been rather busy as late. In addition to revising the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release at least three times since our last writeup, he also pushed a new public build – v2.1.4 – with some notable improvements.
Pwn20wnd announced the update via Twitter on Saturday:
While most Dark Mode-oriented jailbreak tweaks support iOS’ native app interfaces, the vast majority lack support for the various web pages you might visit while surfing the web.
Two tweaks launched in September, dubbed Deluminator and Nebula, were some of the first to bring a full-featured Dark Mode experience to web pages in particular. But now, a new release called Umbreon by iOS developer Soh Satoh accomplishes this same goal while providing some additional customizations.
In the screenshot examples above, you can see how white backgrounds on most web pages are darkened to reduce the eye-searing effect that’s typically endured while browsing the internet in a dark environment. Umbreon should play nicely with most standard web pages, but there are some instances where a web page won’t be fully compatible.
After you install Umbreon, you’ll find an extensive preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:
Here, you can:
Toggle the tweak on or off on demand Enable Dark Mode for web pages Combine custom CSS formatting with Dark Mode CSS Select different apps to disable features in Configure a CSS injection delay Toggle gray background instead of black for Dark Mode Enable web image brightness adjustments Use a slider to set a custom image brightness level Enter custom Dark Mode CSS styling if you don’t want to use the default Toggle website filtering Choose whether filter is a black list or a white list Choose whether filter should exactly match URLs or guess websites based on name Inject custom JavaScript Toggle filtering for JavaScript injectionThe developer includes a respring button at the top right of the preference pane that you can use to save your changes. You should use it any time you adjust the settings in this pane.
Compared to Deluminator and Nebula, it seems like Umbreon intends to offer more features to the end user, but its aesthetics aren’t as streamlined. As you can probably discern from our screenshot examples above, some website elements don’t render as expected, such as the Google search bar text field and the filtering tabs just above the Google search results.
Finally, we should mention that Umbreon looks best when paired with a core Dark Mode tweak, such as Eclipse or Nightshade; otherwise, you'd only be theming web pages and not the apps you use on a regular basis.
If you’re interested in trying Umbreon, then you can download it for $1.00 from Cydia’s Packix repository. The tweak is compatible with jailbroken iOS 10 and 11 devices. Any bugs should be reported directly to the developer such that they can be fixed promptly.
What are your thoughts about the versatility that Umbreon presents? Let us know in the comments section below.
Apple designed the iOS Home screen such that you could scroll through pages of app icons, but there’s always been a single row of non-scrollable, static app icons near the bottom of the display, more commonly referred to as the Dock.
Love it or hate it, the Dock is a staple in Apple’s desktop and mobile operating systems, but a new free jailbreak tweak called Fullboard by iOS developer Heft Johnson lets you nix it entirely, instead transforming the full height of the Home screen into a scrollable interface.
Developer Khaos Tian has managed to add his Smart TV to the Home app on the iOS 12.2 beta by hacking Apple's HomeKit protocol. As a result, he's discovered, screenshotted and capture on video some of the upcoming HomeKit features for Smart TV integration and control.
There are GIFs everywhere. We see them, save them, and share them from Facebook, Twitter, and even those we receive in Messages or Mail. So, if you want to have some fun, make something memorable, or just get creative with your photos and videos, why not make a GIF of your own?
These are the best free apps for creating animated GIFs on iPhone.
The Apple News service will come to Canada with the forthcoming iOS 12.2 and macOS Mojave 10.14.4 software updates. Apple News launched in the United States on September 16, 2015 in iOS 9 before expanding to Australia and the United Kingdom.
acker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd pushed his ninth revision to the unc0ver v2.2.0 pre-release jailbreak tool for public testing on Friday. As you might come to expect, this revision incorporates minor bug fixes and improvements to help the beta process along.
We can gather from Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub changelog that this new revision brings the following changes:
Responding to the outrage from the artistic community after it announced the "Shot on iPhone Challenge" contest earlier this week, Apple's now confirmed that ten winning photographers will indeed be compensated for their work.
Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate chats from its three major properties: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
This was reported Friday by The New York Times. A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the report's findings via a written statement to the newspaper.
The different chats should be merged sometime in 2020.
According to sources, Facebook's boss and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently summoned WhatsApp employees to announce the merging of the company's messagings services.
They balked at the plan, the article reads:
On December 7, employees gathered around microphones at WhatsApp’s offices to ask Mr. Zuckerberg why he was so invested in merging the services. Some said his answers were vague and meandering. Several WhatsApp employees have left or plan to leave because of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plans, the people said.
If Facebook proceeds with the plan, customers will be able to start a chat with another user irrespective of whether they're on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. As an example, a Messenger user could start chatting with a friend of Instagram, or vice versa. In another instance, a WhatsApp user would be able to chat directly with a contact on Instagram.
From the article:
By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential.
Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp will remain separate apps: the company will not merge them into a unified mega-app for chatting.
This integration would include end-to-end encryption to protect communications as the messages are transmitted between the three different chat services.
It was however unclear at post time how this would work in practice considering that people go by their real name on Facebook versus the anonymity that Instagram and WhatsApp provide.
Today, WhatsApp requires people to register only a phone number to sign up for the service. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their real identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized.
Is this a good idea, do you think?
Let us know in the comments!
Learn how to stop people from logging into macOS using a guest account to prevent unauthorized access to your Mac.
Ahead of Chinese New Year which falls on February 5, Apple's official YouTube channel yesterday released a short shot-on-iPhone film about the taste of home.
Titled "The Bucket" and done by acclaimed director Jia Zhangke, the video asks the question: "What gifts would your parents prepare when your Chinese New Year visit comes to an end?".
It invites the viewer to capture the taste of home this Chinese New Year with their iPhone.
The taste of homeAnd here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu-TqfxpfgU
Apple has also posted a pair of behind-the-scenes videos in which the author sheds some light on how slowing time with the Slo-mo camera feature makes emotions last longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRn6SutCmcU
"Use Slo-mo to prolong and savor the taste of home this Chinese New Year," Apple advises. In the following making-of video, Jia discusses bridging the gap between his subject matter and audience through the Depth Control feature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lYFWtSIPiM
"Use Depth Control to get closer to the taste of home this Chinese New Year," says Apple.
Shot on iPhone, but...These short films were all shot on the new iPhone XS.
As we saw with other Apple-commissioned clips, third-party accessories for filmmaking were most likely used in the making of these clips to stabilize footage, capture aerial scenes and more, with color-correction and editing likely done in professional video editing apps.
Prime examples of such professionally done videos include recent short films about a teenage athlete from American Samoa and Japan’s extravagantly decorated trucks, called "decotora," that attempt to highlight low-light photography improvements of the latest handsets.
Shot on iPhone contestThree days ago, Apple announced a contest inviting iPhone users from around the globe to submit their best shots for a chance to be featured on billboards, in retail stores and online.
Submissions will be accepted from January 22 to February 7, and Apple says a panel of judges will be selecting 10 winning photos.
Apple to pay licensing feesResponding to criticism by the artistic community that it will use select works from the winning iPhone photographers on billboards without compensation, Apple has since updated the content announcement to acknowledge that winning artists will be paid for their work.
"Apple believes strongly that artists should be compensated for their work," reads the updated press release. "Photographers who shoot the final 10 winning photos will receive a licensing fee for use of such photos on billboards and other Apple marketing channels."
What do you think about these new shot-on-iPhone ads?
Let us know in the comments down below.
I use Face ID and/or Touch ID so often these days that I’ve all but forgotten what it’s like to need to enter a passcode manually. Still, iOS occasionally asks for it, such as after rebooting your handset and following a multi-day timeout period. That said, you'll still stumble upon the passcode entry screen at one point or another.
And that brings me to my next point; if you’re jailbroken, then you might want to customize the look and feel of your passcode entry screen. Fortunately, there’s a new jailbreak tweak in town that will let you do that.