Purported prototype of original iPhone sells for $1500 on eBay

An alleged iPhone prototype sold on eBay this morning for a staggering $1500. The handset appears to be in excellent condition, and the screenshots provided by the owner show the device running what looks like Apple's internal diagnostic software.

The seller specifically calls it an 'original iPhone engineering prototype,' with signal strength measurements etched on the rear casing. And he says he's selling it because his wife told him he had "too much stuff" and he needed to reduce his collection...

Outpost Luna review: a city-building board game for sci-fi fans

Leave it to a bunch of MIT guys to make their own board game. According to the email we received at iDB, a group of MIT graduates gets together every Labor Day weekend to play games and finally decided to create their own. Put a couple of brilliant minds in a room together and they could end world hunger… or make a board game.

Outpost Luna is the end result of years of playing and tweaking a city-building game set in outer space, and then turning it in to an iOS game…

Apple device activations grew by 2.3 times on Christmas Day

And just like that, the holidays are over. It seems like we spend a lot of time preparing—decorating, shopping, etc.—for something that goes by in the blink of an eye. But that's ok, for a lot of folks that blink of an eye brought presents like new iOS hardware.

In fact, if you received a new iPhone or iPad this Christmas, you're in good company. According to data published by mobile analytics firm Flurry, Apple device activations grew 2.3 times on Christmas Day (versus an average day in December) this year...

Tweetbot for Mac updated with major bug fixes

Popular Twitter client Tweetbot posted an update for its Mac application this weekend, bringing the app to version 1.4.1. The update looks fairly minor on the surface, but it includes a handful of serious bug fixes.

Long-time Tweetbot for Mac users will be happy to hear that the new version finally fixes that pesky issue where you can see "x unread items" but can't scroll up to see them, and various other interface annoyances...

Day 5 of Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts: the movie Hugo

We are now on day 5 of the big 12 Days of Gifts event, meaning Apple has removed the Toca House game and has posted a new free item for download. Today’s gift is the award-winning historical adventure drama Hugo.

Based on Brian Selznick's novel 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret,' and directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, Hugo tells the story of a 12-year-old boy living in the walls of the Paris Gare Montparnasse railway station...

Give your old device the look and feel of iOS 7 with Whited00r 7

Although Apple is one of the best handset-makers around when it comes to supporting older devices, it does have a cutoff point. And for iOS 7, that cutoff point was the iPhone 4, meaning you can not install the new firmware on devices older than that.

But never fear! If you happen to be running an older device, you can still get the look and feel of iOS 7 thanks to Whited00r 7. The modded firmware includes an iOS 7-style UI with card multitasking, Control Center, push notifications, and much more...

How to make the stock iOS 7 app icons look like iOS 6

A new jailbreak theme package was just released on Cydia, and it allows users who install it to regain the app icons featured in iOS 6 and below. The theme, which is entitled iOS 6 Theme for iOS 7, is a WinterBoard release that replaces the stock iOS 7 app icons with those from earlier firmware. Take a gander at our full video walkthrough inside to see how it looks.

Day 4 of Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts: Toca House game for kids

We are now on day 4 of Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts event, meaning Apple has removed the Lonely Planet iBook and has posted a new free item for download. Today’s gift is a popular educational game for children called Toca House.

Parents love Toca House because it allows their children (intended for ages 2-6) to virtually participate in everyday household chores like doing the dishes, ironing, and planting flowers in the garden through various mini-games...

Wallpapers of the week: new year time

If you missed the announcement last week, the Wallpapers of the Week format is changed. In a new effort to continuously provide top quality wallpaper images, readers are encouraged to submit any attractive wallpapers instead of simply ones created by an artist only. This switch also allows the images to be seasonally appropriate.

In a seasonally appropriate mindset, with Christmas behind us, the next holiday is celebrating 2014. Each year, a limited amount of new year options are created, primarily due to their short shelf life on users' devices. However, several choices were rounded up and offered herein...

This week’s top stories: it’s all about jailbreaking

Like every Sunday, we bring you the stories that were the most popular on iDB during this past week. Whether it is a news piece, an editorial, a tutorial, a new jailbreak tweak, or an accessory review, we sum it all up in one convenient place.

If you like what you're reading, please make sure 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+.

The year in review: a look back at some of our best stories of 2013 Evad3rs release untethered iOS 7 jailbreak How to jailbreak iOS 7 using evasi0n7 [Mac tutorial] How to jailbreak iOS 7 using evasi0n7 [Windows tutorial] Cydia updated for iOS 7 Why the evad3rs released their iOS 7 jailbreak at this moment Evasi0n7 updated to version 1.0.1 for Mac and PC, removes controversial TaiG package Should you jailbreak your iOS device? The evad3rs speak out about evasi0n7, Taig, money, and more The evad3rs post 2nd letter to the jailbreak community How to access Apple’s secret internal SpringBoard settings menu on iOS 7 Saurik talks MobileSubstrate, 64-bit jailbreak tweaks and more Zeppelin updated to support iOS 7 iH8sn0w and winocm release “drama free” untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3-6.1.5 The 10 best social networking apps of 2013 The 10 best games of 2013 The 10 best news apps of 2013 Five iOS 7 jailbreak tweaks to look at this weekend Here’s what biteSMS running on iOS 7 looks like on video Jailbreak developer Elias Limneos teases upcoming Touch ID tweak How to change the Cydia icon on iOS 7 Apps of the week: Waterlogue, Wake for iPad, Writer Pro, and more…

Of course, don't forget to listen to the latest episode of our new podcast, Let's Talk iOS:

And of course, make sure to catch up with the new episode of Let's Talk Jailbreak:

We’re social! Find iDB on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, App.net, YouTube, and in your RSS reader. Also make sure to subscribe to our new podcast!

How to make most tweaks and apps work with iOS 7 on pre-A7 devices

Are you jailbroken on iOS 7? Are the apps and tweaks installed via Cydia not showing up on your device? If you're running into this problem, you're not alone. I've received numerous questions about this problem over the last few days; so many, that I thought it would good to make a post and video on it for those that need help.

The short answer to the question is Mobile Substrate. Most of the apps and tweaks that you install from Cydia rely on Mobile Substrate, and Mobile Substrate has not been updated for the latest iOS 7 jailbreak as of yet. An update has been promised to come soon, but Saurik, its developer, is no doubt inundated with about a thousand and one different tasks related to the just released jailbreak.

Let's give Saurik the time he needs to get a properly updated working release of Mobile Substrate in our hands. In the meantime, if you're running a non-64-bit device, you can take the following steps to make your favorite apps and tweaks work.

FlipLaunch: Application shortcut toggles for the FlipSwitch framework

FlipSwitch is a framework for adding quick toggles to apps and tweaks. We explained what the framework does and how it works in this post. In fact, FlipControlCenter, a tweak that we just reviewed, uses the FlipSwitch framework to incorporate customized toggles into iOS 7's Control Center. Needless to say, FlipSwitch is an extremely handy tool for developers, because it gets rid of the redundancy of creating shortcut toggles from scratch with every app or tweak.

A new add-on to FlipSwitch has been released called FlipLaunch. It allows users to incorporate app shortcuts directly into releases that support FlipSwitch. This means that one can easily add a shortcut to any app installed on device to any tweak or app that supports the FlipSwitch framework. And because the add-on uses a special two-letter naming system, you're ensured that the application launch toggles will always look good and never out of place.

I've tested out FlipLaunch with the FlipControlCenter tweak that we just reviewed. Have a look inside to see how it works via our hands-on video walkthrough.