The top stories of the week on iDB

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Like every Sunday, we get to take a look at some of the most popular posts that were published on iDB during the week. Whether it is a news item, a new jailbreak tweak, a tutorial, or an app review, we sum it all up in one convenient place for you.

As always, if you like what you're reading, please feel free to spread the love by sharing our posts on your favorite social network. We're usually hanging out a lot on Twitter and Facebook, more rarely on Google+.

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Apple vs the FBI: a recap of this week’s events

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 1, 2018
FBI and Apple logos

When a federal judge in California ordered Apple to aid the FBI in an investigation earlier this week, she sparked what many believe is the most important privacy debate in recent memory. The FBI wants access to the passcode-locked iPhone of one of the shooters involved in last year's San Bernardino massacre, and it wants Apple to help it break in.

At a high level, this seems pretty simple: the FBI has bad guy's phone; it wants to use it to try and stop other bad guys; it needs Apple's help to do that. But you don't have to zoom in very far to see that it's much more complex. Apple refused to help the FBI, saying that the request "undermines the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect."

That was on Wednesday. Here is everything that has happened since.

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Sort through your photos like that with 3D Touch

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 4, 2019

We have covered dozens of the best 3D Touch uses in Apple's most important apps, like Messages, Safari, Mail, Camera, Maps and a few others. Today, we explore how 3D Touch on the iPhone elevates your experience in Photos, one of my favorite stock apps.

With 3D Touch, you can animate a Live Photo and make your wallpaper come alive with a deep press, peek at your photos and videos within the stock Photos app, go to your best photos and see what you were snapping up this time last year, right from the Home screen, and much more. 

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This tweak lets you choose whether a message is sent as SMS or iMessage

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 10, 2023

If you've ever wanted to send a message as an SMS instead of an iMessage, or vice-versa, you're in luck, because SwitchService is a jailbreak tweak now available in Cydia's BigBoss repository free of cost that will let you do just that.

Whether you're having problems with one of the services and want to use a different one, or feel that one of the services would better fit your needs at a certain point in time, this tweak will have you covered.

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How to install emulators on your iPhone or iPad, no jailbreak required

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 20, 2016

Emulators are a way to play your favorite childhood games on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad without carrying the game disks or cartridges and game consoles around with you. Instead, they sideload the games on your device as a piece of software, and they're given controls that are adapted for the touch screen.

In this tutorial, we'll be showing you a method that still works to this day for getting emulators on your iOS device, and the best part is, you don't even have to be jailbroken to do any of it.

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This tweak cures your nostalgia for the iOS 7 App Switcher

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 20, 2016

Although there are plenty of similarities between the App Switcher in iOS 7 and iOS 8, Apple launched a redesigned App Switcher in iOS 9 focused on improved aesthetics.

The iOS 9 App Switcher isn't always very responsive to upward swipes and sometimes swipes side-to-side instead. Moreover, it can be slower and laggy on older iOS devices that aren't built for the added demands on the system's resources.

If you're missing the fluidity and responsiveness of the iOS 7 App Switcher, and you have a jailbroken device, you're going to love a new jailbreak tweak dubbed AppSwitcher7, which is available for free in Cydia as of today.

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Rayman Classic, Sunshine and more apps to check out this weekend

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

We've put together an awesome list of apps and games for you to checkout this weekend, including a new weather app that's beautifully designed and offers some interesting features, and not one but two classic games that have been brought back to life for the mobile era. So without further ado, here are the Apps of the Week.

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Temporarily clear app icon badges with BadgeCleaner

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 19, 2016

If you're like me, then you probably get several notification badges on your Home screen app icons all the time because people want to talk to you or because apps want to share stuff with you.

Unfortunately, if you launch the app just to get rid of the badge, the notification is gone for good and you might forget to look at it later.

Available now to solve this problem is a new free jailbreak tweak called BadgeCleaner, which can be had from Cydia's BigBoss repository. This tweak lets you easily clear app badges without dismissing the notifications the app might have waiting for you.

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Liven up your tweets and direct messages on Twitter with animated GIFs

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 19, 2016

The next time you tweet out an update or message someone on Twitter, try adding a little flair to your tweets or direct messages in the form of animated GIFs.

Earlier in the week, the micro-blogging startup announced it's integrating a dedicated GIF search button in its mobile apps and on twitter.com to help you add that viral kitten GIF to your posts without leaving the compose window.

Twitter's partnered with Giphy and Riffsy to help you find the right GIF animation to express your mood. You can search GIFs by keyword, or browse categories of different reactions like Happy Dance, Mic Drop, YOLO and more.

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Facebook rolls out Live Video functionality globally

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 19, 2016

Facebook is making good on its promise to roll out its Periscope-like Live Video feature to user around the world. As noted by Engadget, the social networking firm has now confirmed it's begun rolling out the feature globally. The company started testing Live Video with a small percentage of U.S. celebrities, verified profiles and other users last December.

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