Sega’s remastered Sonic games on sale for a limited time

Somewhere in the midsts of all of the iOS 7 jailbreak excitement, we forgot to mention that Sega has followed in the footsteps of other game publishers and developers and has placed a number of its popular iOS titles on sale for the holidays.

This includes Sonic, Sonic 2 and Sonic CD—games which have been recently remastered by the talented Christian Whitehead that now feature better graphics and faster frame rates than their originals—as well as a handful of other Sonic titles...

Apple’s ‘Rockstar Consortium’ considering Nortel patent sale

In 2011, Apple teamed up with a number of tech companies including Microsoft and BlackBerry to form what many called the 'Rockstar consortium' to purchase a collection of over 4,000 patents from Nortel, a communications company that went bankrupt in 2009.

Bloomberg is now reporting that the consortium is currently holding discussion regarding a potential sale of a portion of the patents—which it paid in upwards of $4.5 billion for—after several attempts to land large licensing deals from other companies have failed...

‘Display Recorder’ and other tweaks shown off with iOS 7 support

Prolific jailbreak developer Ryan Petrich teased some of the highly anticipated updates to his popular jailbreak releases early this morning. Petrich, who created the frequently used Display Recorder app, Activator, and a whole host of other important Cydia releases, seems to be fairly far along in the update process if his video teaser is anything to go by.

Along with his more well-known releases, a new tweak by the name of FlipControlCenter was shown off in the video. Although we aren't able to discern all of the details by means of the short clip, FlipControlCenter appears to be a tweak that brings shortcut toggle customization to iOS 7's new Control Center menu. Have a look inside for more details.

Castro updated to support non-iTunes subscriptions

We loved the new Castro podcasting app in our recent review, but our main beef with the app was with the lack of non-iTunes subscription support. In previous versions of Castro, there was no way to manually add feed URLs from podcasts that aren't listed in iTunes. This meant that shows like Let's Talk Jailbreak, which are not on iTunes, couldn't be played via Castro.

The good news is that Supertop, the developers behind Castro, didn't let this glaring omission go on for too long. The team has just pushed Castro version 1.0.2 to the App Store, and with it comes the ability to subscribe to podcasts directly from URLs. The update includes quite a few more additions to the app as well; check inside for the full change log.

Apple posts slides, videos from iOS 7 Tech Talk tour

Every year, Apple hosts a series of Tech Talk developer sessions around the globe. They're very similar to the sessions held at Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference in June, but obviously on a much broader scale.

This year's iOS 7 Tech Talks ran from October through December, in various cities like London, New York and Shanghai. And for those that couldn't make it in person, Apple's just posted slides and videos from the sessions online...

SwitchSpring: a new jailbreak tweak that brings respring control to the app switcher

And...let the inevitable deluge of new jailbreak apps and tweaks begin! SwitchSpring is a brand new jailbreak tweak that just appeared on Cydia today. Keep in mind that there still may be some underlying compatibility issues with jailbreak tweaks as all of the bugs and updates get ironed out from yesterday's surprise iOS 7 jailbreak release, but things are slowly moving towards that direction.

I was able to test out SwitchSpring on my jailbroken iPod touch 5th generation, and it worked just fine. This is a jailbreak tweak that allows you to easily kill all running apps or respring your device right from the app switcher. Of course, I've made a video walkthrough showcasing how SwitchSpring works in action, and I encourage you to take a look.

Square Enix posts trailer for upcoming Final Fantasy VI port

Back in October, Square Enix director Takashi Tokita announced that his team was working on a mobile version of its popular Final Fantasy VI title. The game, he said, will be landing on iOS and Android platforms “this winter.”

Unfortunately, that’s about all we know right now, and the winter timeframe means we may not see anything until mid-March. But we have seen a couple of screenshots from the game, and this week Square Enix posted a trailer...

The 10 best social networking apps of 2013

The Oxford Dictionary just named “selfie” the word of the year. I’d say that just about sums up 2013. This year, social networking took on a whole new meaning and has become an enormous beast that is impossible to contain. Whether you share your personal life on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or all of the above, the Internet has made it possible for anyone to keep track of how many people like them.

The writers at iDownloadBlog have come up with a list of what they think are the 10 best social networking apps of 2013. Check out our favorites and then vote for the one you like best to be added to our Best Apps of 2013 list…

Wallpapers of the week: Christmas pack

We are celebrating as we quickly approach Christmas, for those who observe the holiday. Additionally, today marks the 26th installment of Wallpapers of the Week, which means we hosted the section for exactly one half year. I enjoyed seeing the wallpapers from different artists each week and choosing which ones to post.

However, this week will mark a change in the wallpaper posts. Over the past six months, wallpaper submissions from readers dwindled. Although the post is frequently a highly trafficked article, readers slowly stopped sending in their work. Currently, I only receive three to four submissions each week. While I frequently reconsidered past wallpapers, the well is drying up. Posting quality images each week is becoming a challenge; therefore, the format must change to remain relevant...

New report suggests iOS 7.1 may not be released until March

Following the release of iOS 7.1 beta 2 to developers last week, BGR is reporting that Apple has seeded a new build of the software update to carrier partners. It's unclear when Apple will push the new beta to devs, but the site says a public release is still months away.

Citing a 'trusted source,' BGR's Jonathan Geller reports that Apple plans to rollout iOS 7.1 in March of next year. That means we're still a roughly 3 months out, and that the update would've been in testing for more than 4 months—a fairly long time for a '.1' release...

Apple believed to have acquired mapping firm BroadMap, note-taking app Catch

During Apple's latest earnings call, Tim Cook noted that the company made 15 'strategic acquisitions' during its fiscal 2013. But out of those 15 purchases, we've only heard about 9 or 10 of them, begging the question: who else did Apple buy this year?

Mark Gurman over at 9to5Mac has a pretty good theory about at least two of them. Citing sources inside Apple, as well as evidence from LinkedIn and other sites, Gurman is reporting that Apple also acquired mapping firm BroadMap and Catch this year...

This is your chance to win our stocking stuffer accessory giveaway

It is the Christmas time of year and we are having a small celebration here on iDB. With the newly released Evasi0n7 jailbreak, there is plenty of reason for merriment. To share the Christmas excitement, we teamed up with a few companies to offer little stocking stuffers to a lucky reader.

From a small screen cleaner to aluminum earbuds, there is a little something in here for everyone. However, we will picking only one lucky winner to stuff their stocking with all of the items included in the details below...