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This week on iDB: one port to rule them all

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated April 30, 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 that just ended. 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.

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IGN names ‘Valiant Hearts: The Great War’ its Free Game of the Month

Cody Lee ∙ Updated February 6, 2018

Great news gamers, IGN has named Ubisoft's 'Valiant Hearts: The Great War' its Free Game of the Month for January. The game has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars in the App Store, from thousands of reviews, and it typically retails for $4.99.

For those unfamiliar with the title, Valiant Hearts is a popular puzzle adventure game that offers up an engaging storyline and unique mix of puzzle-explore-action gameplay. It first landed on consoles last summer, and then hit iOS in the fall.

What would you like to see from Apple this year?

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Apple blogger and Instapaper founder Marco Arment caused an earthquake in the Apple community when he released a blistering article on the current state of Apple's hardware earlier this week. It's not often you see Apple bloggers being critical of the company they're usually so quick to praise.

"We don't need major OS releases every year," Arment wrote. "We don't need each OS release to have a huge list of new features. We need our computers, phones, and tablets to work well first so we can enjoy new features released at a healthy, gradual, sustainable pace."

So that left two questions: Is Arment correct in his theory? What do you want from Apple in 2015?

Apple overtakes Nikon for second place camera brand on Flickr in 2014

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

Flickr has released its list of camera brands that were used the most to capture photos on the photography website in 2014. The top five were: Canon at 13.4 percent, Apple at 9.6 percent, Nikon at 9.3 percent, Samsung at 5.6 percent, and Sony at 4.2 percent.

Apple overtook Nikon for the second place spot in 2014. The iPhone 5, 4S and 4 were the top three for both 2013 and 2014, with the Canon EOS 7D and the Nikon D7000 unchanged in 4th and fifth place respectively.

SubtleLock brings a minimal style to the iOS 8 Lock screen

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

SubtleLock has always been a good way to transform the iOS Lock screen with a minimal style, and the iOS 8 version of SubtleLock tries to live up to the legacy. This is a tweak that can customize the Lock screen font, color, size, and even simplify the look of the clock and date readout. If you're using an impressive wallpaper that you'd like to showcase rather than hide behind Lock screen elements, then SubtleLock for iOS 8 may provide the options you need after an update or two.

Apps of the Week: Evernote Scannable, Gunbrick, CARROT Hunger, and more

Lory Gil ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

This is the first week of 2015 that has finally put the App Store back on track. With the new launch slowdown officially over, we’ve got plenty of titles to check out.

If you’ve been waiting for things to get back to normal, too, we’ve got a list of apps and games that will give you something to write home about this weekend.

AlternateControls brings Android-inspired software buttons to iOS

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Although it might seem a little like blasphemy, a new jailbreak tweak is taking the risk and bringing Android trademarked software controls to iOS. That means that the famed back, home, and menu buttons are now available on your iPhone. Living up to its name, AlternateControls provides a new way to control your iOS device without using the Home button. But there's a bit more to the story than what appears on the surface. Watch our full walkthrough video to see what I mean.

Flick Scroll: a promising new jailbreak tweak that could change how we scroll

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

The concept of Flick Scroll is a great one: being able to use a simple flick gesture on a scrollable view to align the page exactly where you want it. If you've ever been reading a long article on Safari or any other app with a scrollable view, perhaps you've struggled trying to keep the text aligned in a manner that makes consuming the content less arduous. That, in theory, is what Flick Scroll aims to accomplish, but the jailbreak tweak, which just appeared on Cydia's BigBoss repo, isn't quite ready for primetime.

Spotlight bug exposes your Mac’s IP address and more to spammers

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 9, 2015

An unusual oversight in how OS X's Spotlight feature handles privacy settings in Apple Mail leaves the door open to spammers, phishers and online tracking companies who can obtain private data such as your IP address, current operating system version, browser details and more, whenever an email message is previewed in Spotlight.

First discovered by German technology news site Heise, the bug takes advantage of a common information harvesting technique and a Mail setting which determines whether or not the program loads remote content in emails.

Photego: secure the stock Photos app with Touch ID

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

There are tweaks that exist on Cydia that allow you to secure an entire app, but to my knowledge, no tweak yet exists that allows you to secure specific aspects of the stock Photos app with Touch ID. That's where Photego comes in, a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to prevent users from deleting photos, accessing albums, and more via Touch ID.

Piracy on iOS: 60% of Monument Valley installs on iPhone and iPad not paid for

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Even though this particular data point is a few days old now, I think it's highly relevant in light of Apple's glowing App Store stats revealed yesterday.

According to developer Ustwo Games, its award-winning and incredibly successful Monument Valley, an atmospheric puzzle game in which you manipulate impossible architecture inspired by the works of M.C. Escher, has seen a significant chunk of its potential revenue lost to piracy because only 40 percent of the $3.99 game installs on the iPhone and iPad were paid for.

The vast chunk of the remaining sixty percent iOS installs were illegitimate, or to put it bluntly — pirated. On Android, the paid install base is a paltry five percent (you read that right), as a huge hunk of the remaining 95 percent of users opted to steal Monument Vally on Android rather than pay four bucks to enjoy it.

Is the 60 percent piracy rate on iOS a worrying number for Monument Valley developers and a bad sign for Apple's mobile platform? Read on for the full reveal.

Reports of the iPod shuffle’s death are greatly exaggerated

Sébastien Page ∙ January 9, 2015

Apple is not killing off the iPod shuffle, according to a report from Billboard who cites sources with knowledge of the situation. Instead, the publication says that "Apple is actually going thorough component supplier changes that have interrupted production of the Shuffle." If this report is to be believed, slipping iPod shuffle shipping times and unavailability in Apple Stores around the country could simply be explained by the fact that Apple is switching components supplier.