Apps

WiCarrier Displays Wifi Network in Status Bar

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 19, 2010

Earlier today I told you about FullForce, a new app by Ryan Petrich. Ryan is very prolific these days as he has yet another app available in Cydia.

Ryan's new application is WiCarrier, a very simple app that displays the name of the wifi network you're connected to in your status bar. Additionally, it can display your IP address as well.

After installing WiCarrier from Cydia, you will notice that if you're on wifi, your carrier name has been replaced by the name of the wifi network. If you tap on the network name, it will display your IP address.

While it's not a breakthrough app that will change your life, it's still a nice little tweak.

FullForce Forces Your iPhone Apps to Display in Full Screen Mode on iPad

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 19, 2010

A few days ago I shared with you a hack to make your iPhone apps run in full screen mode on your iPad. This hack requires a few steps that might scare away those of you who don't feel like playing with the core files of applications.

Lucky for us, one of my favorite jailbreak developer, Ryan Petrich, created FullForce, an application that "force selects applications to show in full screen iPad mode, even if the developer hasn't certified them as compatible".

The result? Even if an application like Facebook can't be properly displayed in full screen mode on your iPad, FullForce will work its magic and make the app fit the whole screen without pixelizing it.

You can download FullForce from Cydia for free. Once installed, go to the settings.app and in the FullForce options, select the applications you want to force.

Note that FullForce doesn't work with all applications. Just like the hack, text based apps such as Facebook and Tweetie work best in full screen mode.

FullForce is developed specifically for iPad so it can safely be added to the list of iPad compatible jailbrak apps.

List of Jailbreak Apps Compatible with the iPad

Sébastien Page ∙ May 5, 2010

Spirit brought us the easiest and fastest jailbreak ever. Great! The only problem is that most of these jailbreak apps aren't compatible with the iPad just yet.

Some smart dude got the idea to create an editable list of jailbreak apps that work on the iPad. The list is on Google Docs so anyone can edit it. I'm not sure who started this but it sure is a good idea.

So far, about 70 apps have been tested, with more to come. You can find the list here. If you have tested a few jailbreak apps on your iPad, try to report the results by adding them to the list.

Star Walk for iPad, Because Bigger is Better [App Giveaway]

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 24, 2016

I've always been a huge fan of the Star Walk app for iPhone. Not only it is an amazing app to discover the sky, but it is also beautifully made, taking full advantage of the iPhone's features.

For those of you who don't know what Star Walk is about, here is the App Store description:

Star Walk is your personal planetarium that can answer all of your curiosities about the sky! For anyone who is interested in stargazing, amateurs or professionals Star Walk makes discovering more than 9,000 stars, planets, constellations, and messier objects as beautiful and easy as it has never been before!

With Star Walk, you can see the sky in front of you in real-time. Tilt your iPhone towards the sky to activate the digital compass which will determine the location and orientation of your iPhone. The image on your screen will correspond to the area of the sky you are pointing your iPhone towards, and it will follow your movements.

Now Star Walk is also available for iPad. If you thought SW was cool on your iPhone, wait to see it on this big fat iPad screen. I'm already completely sold on it!

Vito Technology, the devs behind Star Walk, were kind enough to give me a promo code for the iPad version so I can try it out. Even better, they gave me 3 promo codes to give away too!

If you want a promo code for Star Walk for iPad, simply leave a comment explaining why you want it. I'll randomly (or not) pick the 3 winners in a few days.

Vito Tech also gave me promo codes for Star Walk and Solar Walk for iPhone. Make sure to follow me on Twitter and on Facebook to be the first to grab one of those soon.

Snappy: the Fastest Camera App for iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ April 28, 2010

Have you ever missed a great picture because your iPhone camera app was to slow to launch? If so, then read on because Snappy might be the answer to your frustration.

Snappy is a jailbreak app available from Cydia that allows you to quicky launch the camera app simply by tapping and holding the status bar.

Look at this demo to see how Snappy works.

Snappy is the kind of app that makes me wonder why Apple hasn't implemented this yet. I mean, it's pretty basic, yet very useful.

Have you tried Snappy yet? What's your take on it?

Mini Review: Reeder 2 For iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

A few months ago I wrote about the best RSS readers for iPhone. At the time, Byline was my favorite, even though it was missing a couple important features such as being able to share articles on Twitter.

The Byline app description in the App Store has been saying for months they are working on version 3 which will add tons of new features. Turns out they "worked on it" for so long that someone else outdid them.

My new favorite iPhone RSS reader is Reeder 2. I'm not going to get too much into details but I'd rather give a short and sweet review of it.

Pros:

Easy to use and well thought UI It is incredibly fast. Items sync in just seconds Ability to share on Twitter Ability to save to Delicious Quickly "star" an item Easily browse starred, new or all items

Cons:

I don't really like the light-colored UI I wish it gave a larger preview of items

See, many pros and very few cons. Reeder definitely took over the Byline spot in my iPhone dock. If you're in the market for an RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader, then give Reeder a try. At $2.99, it is the best RSS reader for iPhone you can get.

The Best Jailbreak Apps For iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated March 27, 2018

I'm often asked what the best jailbreak apps for iPhone are. The truth is it's hard to tell what the best jailbroken apps are because what's good for me might not be for you.

While we can't all agree on the best apps for jailbroken iPhone, we can certainly agree on what our favorites are. In order to come up with this list, I asked people on Twitter and in the forum what their favorite jailbreak apps were (and I also added some of mine).

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here are the best jailbreak iPhone apps voted by you and me:

MyWi - turns your iPhone into a hotspot Backgrounder - brings multitasking to your iPhone ProSwitcher - a nice UI for Backgrounder Circuitous - a multitasking/app switching application Categories - allows you to create folders WinterBoard - an app that lets you customize many aspects of your iPhone BossPaper - an advanced wallpaper manager that puts total control of wallpapers into your hands VoIPover3G - tricks any app into thinking you're on wifi while you are on 3G or Edge Xpandr - a shortcut expander Action Menu - improves the copy/paste experience QuickScroll - allows you to quickly scroll through a page Find In Page - quickly find any text on web pages qTweeter - lets you update Twitter and Facebook status from within any application SBSettings - a quick a way to toggle settings on/off MultiIconMover - lets you move multiple icons at a time InfiniDock - add unlimited icons to your dock InfiniBoard - vertical scrolling on your springboard QuickDo - app switching/launching LockInfo - customize your lockscreen to get the information you need

Edit: More awesome jailbreak apps here.

What do you think the best jailbreak apps are? Please feel free to share in the comments.

7 Ways Your iPhone Can Make OS 4 Jealous

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 5, 2016

Last week Apple gave us a sneak peek at iPhone OS 4. The presentation, which was more for developers than users, focused on 7 "tent poles" (multitasking, folders, enhanced mail, iBooks, enterprise, game center, and iAd).

I was not particularly impressed by the new features unveiled, mostly because most of them are already here for anyone with a jailbroken iPhone. In this post, I would like to show you how you can make your old boring iPhone 3.X look a little bit more like iPhone OS 4.

For all features listed below, there is either a jailbreak app or mod to do the job. If your iPhone is jailbroken, here is how you can give it a little taste of OS 4. If your iPhone is not jailbroken yet, then you're missing out and you should jump on the jailbreak bandwagon!

Multitasking: Install Backgrounder and ProSwitcher to bring multitasking to your iPhone.

Background wallpapers: Install BossPaper or WinterBoard, which will let you customize your iPhone in every possible way. You can even download the iPhone OS 4 Theme from Cydia!

Folders: Install Categories.

Multiple Exchange accounts: Simply look at this hack that lets you set up multiple Exchange accounts on your iPhone.

iBooks: Just download the free Kindle application from the App Store.

Home screen music controls: Install the Music Controls app.

iAd: Want more ads on your iPhone? Go to any porn site from your iPhone and you'll get plenty of ads. Ok I'm being sarcastic...

I can already hear the complainers complain that this is a huge stretch and that OS 4 will be much better than these jailbreak apps. Well, yes you're right. OS 4 will probably do a better job than these jailbreak apps or tweaks, but the point of this article is to show you that Apple didn't reinvent the wheel at all and that you don't need to wait for this summer to get OS 4 rocking on your iPhone.

How to Turn Your iPhone Into An iPad Camera

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 23, 2016

It's too bad that a great device like the iPad doesn't have a camera. Fortunately, there's an app that will turn your iPhone into an iPad camera. It's not the perfect solution, but it should do the job...

All you need to use your iPhone as a camera for iPad is the Camera for iPad app. After installing the app on your iPad and iPhone, simply launch it on both devices and they will find each other via Bluetooth. Your iPad will then show what your iPhone camera is seeing.

Intuitive controls let you zoom with a pinch or rotate with a swipe. You can just tap the button to take a high resolution photo that is saved onto your iPad.

Camera for iPad isn't just for the iPad! You can connect an iPhone to an iPod Touch, or even connect one iPhone to another, and choose which is the sender and which is the receiver.

Camera for iPad is available from the App Store for $0.99. While I haven't personally tried the app, MichaelB who tipped me on this confirms it works like a charm.

What do you think?

Multitasking 101: Activator

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 27, 2018

>When it comes to multitasking, the Apple line of iDevices falls short. Very short. Apple's claims are more or less valid; multitasking drains the battery. While this may be true in some cases, it doesn't completely hold up to that claim. There are millions of people who jailbreak their devices just so they can multitask.

As of this writing, all generations of the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch cannot multitask applications that are not part of the stock firmware. This means that you cannot download applications from iTunes App Store and minimize it (run it in the background). Have you ever become frustrated that you can't listen to Pandora radio and surf the web with Mobile Safari? Yeah? So have many of us.

Rumors are piling up that Apple will finally allow these 3rd party applications to run in the background. On white paper, this means you can run applications such as Pandora and play games simultaneously at the expense of a generous battery tax. At least the choice would exist. We own the devices after all.

The intriguing part of the iPhone is the fact that there is only one main button. Equally as important is the power button and the volume controls. This opens up new questions as to how to activate backgrounded applications. It's clear that Apple invents but it's also clear that Apple sometimes "borrows" code from the open source projects.

Enter Activator. A free and open source library and Mobile Subtract extension, developed by Ryan Petrich (better known as @rpetrich on Twitter), available to any developer to include with their development projects. That's great for developers. What about the average user?

To the average user, the only catch is Activator is a forbidden fruit and only available for jailbroken devices and only available in the Cydia Store. Anyone using Overboard and/or Snappy is already familiar with the library since Activator is a required library for both applications and is automatically downloaded and installed when either application is installed. It can also be installed as a stand alone application so there is no obligation to install anything else. Just do a search for "Activator" in Cydia and install. Then go to Settings.app and scroll down to your jailbreak settings table and configure your gestures.

Activator installs a handful of gestures, or activation methods, that can be assigned to any application, even applications from the App Store. How cool is that? This allows users to quickly access, or activate, background processes by simply swiping a finger or quickly tapping the home button. Of course, this genius developer also included support for using the volume buttons and the power button.

Assuming all said rumors of multitasking are true, what are your thoughts on handling backgrounded applications? Will Apple develop their own gesture code or "borrow" and close the doors? Activator is there... in all its glory. Free and open. One thing is certain; the current gesture API will need to be updated because one home button cannot do all the work.

My Thoughts On The iPad On Release Day

Guest Author ∙ Updated March 5, 2018

I'm usually up this early for work so it was no sweat for me to get up at 3:00 a.m. and have breakfast with a group of Twitter enthusiasts to get the new Apple iPad. I was one of the few people in the group who was actually not sold on the iPad. I have an iPhone. Why do I need an iPad? I listened to Steve Jobs and watched Apple's series of videos but nothing so far convinced me to buy one. I knew I had to have it in my hands to know if I really could use one. So, I tagged along.

Apple employees were willing to let me try the device even though I told them I had no intention of buying it.

Unfortunately the Wi-Fi at the Apple Store I was at in Hawaii was so flooded I couldn't use apps on the iPad that needed the internet and I couldn't browse Safari. But, there was still plenty to check out.

I immediately wanted to try a racing game and the iPad I was using had Real Racing HD [iTunes link]. I actually didn't like Real Racing on the iPhone and preferred other racing apps like Asphalt 5. I found the learning curve to be tougher. But, on the iPad I quickly learned how to drive well. I didn't even read the instructions so I didn't even use the brakes. Plus, the more recent racing games are notorious for slow loading (especially on the iPhone 3G) but the iPad handled the game with ease.

Another highlight: Pianist Pro [iTunes link]. I know how to play a variety of instruments including the piano. And the iPhone has been almost worthless when it comes to simulating a real instrument. But, Pianist Pro comes pretty darn close to at least a workable toy keyboard. The touchscreen was sensitive enough to handle the chords and arpeggios I threw at it. A drum machine is built-in. There's a dual keyboard mode for playing both the left hand and the right hand notes. The only real drawback to the app is that the white keys will only trigger when hit below the black keys making a chord like A-flat a little harder. Pianists and keyboardists will know what I'm talking about. If that can be fixed, it would be a near-perfect piano app for the iPad.

My favorite new native feature is the ability to use your photos as an animated picture frame when your iPad is locked. It's called Picture Frame. Use it and love it.

I'm definitely a lot more intrigued by the iPad now that I had a chance to have one in my hands. If I do get one, I'm more inclined to use the iPad at home and use my iPhone when I'm out on the road. If I do get an iPad I would rather get the 3G version so when I go on trips I'll always have the internet. Family that I visit in the continental U.S. doesn't have Wi-Fi. I can just activate the unlimited 3G for that month since there is no contract required.

Leave a comment to let us know what you think about the iPad after trying it out.

iRemix Considerably Improves Your iPod App

Sébastien Page ∙ March 31, 2010

Do you feel that the features of the iPod app of your iPhone or iTouch are limited? You're not alone. The other day as I was miserably stuck in a bus between Ninh Binh and Halong Bay in Vietnam, I was playing with my iPod and building an on-the-go playlist. I found it absolutely ridiculous that I couldn't add songs to the on-the-go playlist while playing the songs.

After doing a bit of research online (all this over the amazing Vietnamese 3G), I came across iRemix, a jailbreak app that aims at enhancing your iPod experience. iRemix is more a mod than an app per say. It integrates seamlessly with your iPod app, making it much better.

I was excited about iRemix because it was supposedly able to do what I wanted: easily add songs being played to the on-the-go playlist. But it also has other badass features:

Favorites: tap and hold on a song then add it to your favorites Bookmarks: tap the little bookmark icon to create a bookmark anywhere in a song or audiobook Quick add: quickly add songs to the on-the-go playlist Fast search: simple and powerful search feature Song info: easily get artist or album info. Also allows you to watch the video of the song as well as search for lyrics Enhanced FFW and REW: tap and hold the FFW or REW button to easily jump forward or backward by 15 s, 30 s, 1 min, or 5 minutes.

In the first image below, you can see the bookmarking feature, the "i" for information search, and the FFW/REW feature. Note that I added all of them for this screenshot but the screen doesn't normally look so busy. In the second image, you can see the "add to on-the-go" and "add to favorites" features.

These sounds like very simple features, don't they? Well, they are very basic but very powerful. So powerful that I suspect we will see some of them in iPhone OS 4.0.

iRemix is available from Cydia for $2.99 and comes with a 5-day trial period. This app is a no brainer for anyone looking to make enhance the iPod feature.

You might have already heard or even tried iRemix since it's not so new. If so, what do you think about this app?