Cydia

Cydia news and information: read the latest development about Cydia, including jailbreak tweaks.

SBSwitcher Places SBSettings Toggles in Your App Switcher

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 16, 2010

The first thing I thought when I first saw SBSwitcher on Cydia is "Wow, that's pretty expensive." Indeed $2.99 is quite the hefty price for a jailbreak tweak that essentially duplicates the functionality that you've been enjoying all of this time for free.

SBSwitcher is basically SBSettings placed in your app switcher. Unfortunately, only the toggles apply here, so if you want to invoke any of the other SBSettings functionality, like say, respringing, you'll have to resort back to your old methods...

With that in mind, there has to be some redeeming factor for SBSwitcher, right? Surely, $2.99 will travel further than that, no?

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Why Cydia is Called Cydia

Alex Heath ∙ December 16, 2010

Cydia is a household name in the jailbreak community. Anyone who has jailbroken their iDevice has most likely used Cydia. Some of us may even know that Cydia is the brainchild of Jay "saurik" Freeman, whom most consider the father of the jailbreak.

Cydia is used by millions of people, but how many know why it has such a weird name? I mean, "Cydia?" What in the world does that mean? There has even been dispute as how to say the word "Cydia." Little do most know, there is an interesting reason for the odd title behind the icon that every jailbreaker recognizes...

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RetinaAppIcons Converts Your App Icons With No User Interaction

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 15, 2010

Don't you just hate it when you download an App Store App onto your beautiful iPhone 4, only to be presented with some ugly low-resolution app icon? I don't know about you, but the first thing I do is throw that bad boy in a folder somewhere. Can't have that ugliness de-beautifying my Retina display.

Thankfully, there are ways to convert your icons to retina-worthy icons, but those methods all required some form of end-user intervention. RetinaAppIcons is a jailbreak tweak that promises to take care of all of the dirty work for a nominal fee of $0.99 cents, but does it work as advertised?

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5 Practical Jailbreak Apps That Should Be in Every iPhone Owner’s Tool Belt

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 14, 2010

We here at iDB love us some good jailbreak apps and tweaks, but there are few that stand out when you take into account sheer practicality.

For example, say you're trying to find your keys in a dark place, or need to know where to position the jumper cables on your stalled car during the cold the night hours? No sweat, you always have a flashlight with you; thanks to your iPhone and SpringFlash.

Did your favorite app make the cut? Are you totally prepared for whatever situation may confront you in a dire time of need? Are we making this way too suspenseful? Check inside and find the answer...

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More Details on Cydia for Mac

Alex Heath ∙ Updated February 6, 2016

We recently reported that the creator of Cydia, Jay "saurik" Freeman, is close to releasing an official version of Cydia for the Mac. We speculated on if it was really necessary, and if it is important enough to thrive on a desktop ecosystem.

This "Mac Cydia" would seem to be Freeman's direct attempt at the jailbreak, unfiltered version of the new Mac App Store and OS X Lion. Since the news of a Mac Cydia, there have been more details shared from Freeman himself about the goals and features of the OS X version of Cydia...

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Light Bright is One of the Easiest Ways to Adjust Your iPhone Brightness Settings

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated July 18, 2011

By now, there's virtually a million and one ways to adjust the brightness levels on your iPhone, so is there really a need for yet another way to address the issue?

While there may be other alternatives, few are as quick and simple to use as Light Bright. The developers claim it's the easiest way to adjust the brightness on your iPhone, but is purchasing this tweak a bright idea?

Apple seems to have finally realized that brightness controls are something that end users want quick access too, as evident by their inclusion of multitask bar brightness controls in iOS 4.2 for the iPad. Sadly, there just wasn't enough screen real estate on the iPhone to do something similar...

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New Tweak Adds a Spiral of Apps to Your iPhone

Sébastien Page ∙ December 13, 2010

IconSpiral is a new tweak by the developer of Barrel. Just like the name suggests, IconSpiral creates a spiral our of your apps icons on your iPhone home screen. This tweak is still in its beta infancy, so don't expect to get something fully stable.

In order to get this tweak on your iPhone, you will first have to submit your UDID via this page. Make sure you read the warning and understand all the risks. Once you have submitted your UDID, add the following repo to Cydia: http://aaron.ms/repo/ ...

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Cydia for Macs to Go Live “Within Weeks”

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated February 6, 2016

With the recently announced Mac App store on the horizon -- which brings an iOS-esque store to Mac OS X platforms -- Cydia creator Jay "Saurik" Freeman plans to strike while the iron is hot.

That could only mean one thing, a Cydia Store for Macs; let's just call it Mac Cydia for simplicity's sake. But the real question is, what use will Mac users have for a Cydia store?

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StayOpened Keeps the App Store From Closing While You Shop

Jeff Benjamin ∙ December 9, 2010

Don't you just hate it when you're in a store, and a clerk comes on the P.A. system, and blurts out, "This store will be closing in 15 minutes"?

That's how I feel every time I purchase an app from the App Store. It closes, and I'm not even finished shopping! Wouldn't it be nice, if we could keep the App Store opened  when downloading an app? That's the premise of StayOpened, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones...

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The Fastest Way to View Cydia Updates

Guest Author ∙ Updated February 28, 2018

Many of you like to see new packages in Cydia as soon as they're available. If you're put off by the time it takes Cydia to load, then here's an alternative method to view changes, updates, and newly posted apps.

To do this, you will need an RSS reader app, or at the very least a Google Reader account. I recommend using the free version of MobileRSS, but any will do. Once you have a way to view RSS feeds on your iPhone, add the feed listed below.

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