Cydia

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

Orbit (Previously Expose) is Now Available on Jailbroken iPhones

Sébastien Page ∙ October 17, 2009

There has been a lot of noise recently about a concept called Expose (see video below). Today, Expose is more than a concept and it has officially become an application renamed Orbit for the occasion.

Orbit brings you an instant way to switch between pages on your home screen. Based on the "iPhone Expose" concept, this modification gives you an icon that, when tapped, animates your home page into Orbit.

The app was created by Steven Troughton-Smith, the developer of Stack. If you have a Mac, you might even be familiar with the concept as Orbit is pretty much like Spaces on the Mac.

Orbit is available from Cydia for $1.99. I haven't downloaded the application has I wouldn't make any use of it (I don't have many apps installed) but I know there are a lot of people out there who were patiently waiting for the release of this app.

How to Fake Your iPhone Firmware for Apps That Require A Newer Firmware

Sébastien Page ∙ October 10, 2009

If like me you are still running on OS 3.0, you sometimes probably encounter an issue when trying to download an application from the App Store. The issue in question is that "this application requires the iPhone 3.1 firmware update", which comes under the form of a popup saying "Application Not Compatible".

There is a quick and dirty fix for that: simply install the FWchanger app from Cydia.

Firmware Changer is an app that lets you change the plist file that contains the version of firmware you are running. This is useful for things that refuse to install or run on one firmware version even though they can. Note this only changes the reported firmware, not the actual firmware.

After installing FWchanger, launch the app and enter a fake firmware and build.

Hit "Set Custom Firmware", and voila! Go to Settings > General > About and you should see your fake firmware there.

Now you can trick these applications that require you to be on 3.1 into thinking you are running OS 3.1 even though you are not. This works for older 2.X firmwares as well. Note that it doesn't always work as advertised but in most cases, it was spot on for me.

Pretty slick, huh?

Action Menu Considerably Improves Your iPhone Copy/Paste Experience

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated May 19, 2010

Action Menu is one of those mods that once you try it, you simply can't live without it anymore. I've had the opportunity to use Action Menu for about a month now, and it has quickly become my favorite Cydia app. So what does Action Menu does?

Action Menu takes a stab at enhancing the copy/paste function of your iPhone by adding a bunch of add-ons to it. The lite version is free but for $2.99, you can get the full-featured app, which I think is well worth the money (even though I have to admit I didn't pay for it since the dev gave me a promo code).

In addition to the stock cut/copy/paste functionality, the app has many features that are very useful, such as:

Select all - select all the text at once Dial - dials any number that you select To top - scroll all the way up the page To bottom - scroll all the way down the page

Very helpful but not "ground breaking" features, right? Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg because Action Menu also comes with some very useful features that I use every day:

History - all your copied or cut text is saved to a clipboard for easy access. You can edit the clipboard to delete them and move them up and down the list, just like hClipBoard and Clippy used to do. Favorites - this is my top fav of them all. If there is text that you have to paste on a regular basis, just add it to your favorites for quick and easy access. That favorite text could be an email signature for example, a phone number, a website URL, etc... I currently have 6 favorites. I use this all the time. Lookup - don't know what this word means? Want to know how to translate this word in French? Just select a word or sentence and hit the "lookup" button. You will have the ability to search this word in Google, Wikipedia, dictionary, or even translate it in the language of your choice. Very handy, especially for a Frenchman like me... Tweet - Select some text and hit the "Tweet" button. It will open your favorite Twitter app and copy the text into it.

Action Menu is available from Cydia and if your iPhone is jailbroken, I really suggest you at least try the free version. I bet you won't be able to live without it anymore after trying it.

I also bet you that Apple noticed this application and they will implement these features in the next 4.0 OS next year. Take that as a prediction.

What are you still doing here reading this? Launch Cydia and download Action Menu now! Then come back here and tell us what you think about this application :)

How to Downgrade iPhone 3GS From Firmware 3.1 to 3.0

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated February 10, 2010

Saurik, the creator of Cydia, has come up with a way to downgrade the iPhone 3GS from firmware 3.1 to firmware 3.0. The method is not for the faint of heart but it can be a life saver if you accidentally upgraded your iPhone 3GS to 3.1. Saurik did a great job at explaining how and why this downgrade works and I invite you to read his article for detailed information. On my part, I will only give you a step by step on how to downgrade from 3.1 to 3.0.

1. First and foremost, you must have saved your ECID file through Cydia. If this was done, you should see the following message at the top of Cydia's homepage: This iPhone 3G[S] has an ECID SHSH on file.

2. Now we're going to duplicate the functionality exposed by Apple's signature server and trick iTunes into thinking it is connected to Apple's servers. Make sure you have iTunes 9 installed on your computer.

On a Mac, go to /etc/hosts. On a PC, go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. Open the file in a text editor and add the following entry at the bottom of the file: 74.208.105.171 gs.apple.com

Save the file and close it.

3. Now we have to put your iPhone into DFU mode. To do this, open iTunes, plug your iPhone and hold down the power and home buttons for 10 seconds, then let go of the power button but continue to hold the home button until iTunes recognizes the device with the message: "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes." Your iPhone screen should be completely black. If you see an image on your screen, you most likely didn't perform the previous step correctly. Try again.

4. You can now do a "normal" restore to the 3.0 software. To do this, hold down the Option key (on Mac OS X) or the SHIFT key (Windows) while clicking the Restore button in iTunes. Select the firmware 3.0 (which can be downloaded here).

Theoretically, you should be done with the downgrade. That's just for the theory though... You're most likely going to get several errors.

If you get the "unknown error (3002)", it's because you probably don't have your ECID SHSH's for 3.0 on file with Cydia and it is unfortunately impossible to register your device with Cydia anymore. There is no solution, your iPhone can't be downgraded from 3.1 to 3.0 and you're gonna have to wait for a new jailbreak.

If you get the "The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occured (1015)" error, then re-do the process all over again. You will get the same error again and it is normal. Ignore the error and jailbreak your iPhone using RedSn0w.

I agree that this is definitely not the easiest way to downgrade your iPhone from firmware 3.1 to firmware 3.0, but you don't have much choice at this point. If you don't feel like taking on this project, I suggest you just wait for a proper 3.1 jailbreak, which may take days, weeks, or months. I am very confident that the jailbreak community is getting closer to a 3.1 jailbreak though.

If you have any tips and tricks to make this whole process smoother, or if you have any question, please leave a comment.

UPDATE: If you have an iPhone 3G, you can now downgrade from baseband 05.12.01 to o4.26.08.

mQuickDo Brings App Switching to the iPhone (+10 Promo Codes)

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

When I first heard and tried mQuickDo, I wasn't really impressed at all. First, the description didn't highlight the real benefits of this application because the developers sell it as a "virtual home and power buttons for the iPhone". What the hell does that mean? Exactly! I tried mQuickDo and was very confused about what it did and how it worked. I quickly gave up on this app without giving it much more thoughts.

Then last week I read an article by fellow iPhone blogger Patrick Jordan at JAIB. Patrick's article described mQuickDo as what it really is: an app switcher for the iPhone. This is what really made me think twice about this app, and ultimately led me to give it another shot.

Originally, mQuickDo lets you set up gestures to perform predefined actions (ie. slide left to right to close an opened application; or slide right to left to shut off the phone, etc...) but to be honest with you, I think this is kinda useless.

The real power and most exciting feature about mQuickDo is the App Switcher. As its name suggests, the app switcher allows you to quickly switch between apps. You have to tweak the settings to customize the gestures to trigger the app switching, but once you got it to work properly, this is a real time-saver.

I have to admit that it takes time to get used to some of the gestures. To make it easier, I set up mQuickDo to launch the app switcher for all the predefined gestures, which means I am not using any of the other features of mQuickDo, but as I said above, I find them useless anyways.

The app switcher feature is pretty awesome. Add Backgrounder to this and you actually get a productivity booster that will allow you to multi-task and really get the most out of your iPhone.

mQuickDo is available from Cydia and comes with a 3-day trial period. After that, it will cost you $7.99 if you want to keep it. Although a little pricey, I still think mQuickDo is a must-have application and it undoubtedly makes it in my Top 10 list of favorite applications.

The developers of mQuickDo were kind enough to provide us with 10 promo codes for our loyal blog readers.

How to Win

You have to do 2 things to win one of the 10 promo codes:

Follow me on Twitter and Retweet this post by clicking here Leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your Twitter ID Download the mQuickDo free trial from Cydia

10 winners will be randomly selected and will be notified on Twitter sometimes next week.

Good luck :)

10 Beautiful and Original iPhone Themes

Sébastien Page ∙ September 2, 2009

One of the main reasons to jailbreak your iPhone is that it allows you to add custom themes and make it stand out from the crowd of blend and boring iPhones out there. Using WinterBoard you can customize the look of your iPhone, including icons, wallpaper, dock, etc… You can literally spend hours creating and tweaking themes to make them unique, and original.

Within the past few weeks, I have been selecting several beautiful and original iPhone themes that I'd like to share with you today. More after the break...

PrivaCy Prevents These iPhone Apps From Spying on You

Sébastien Page ∙ August 25, 2009

Last week I wrote an article about how certain applications are spying on you and tracking some of your personal data. Although the practice is legal, it is nonetheless very controversial.

Thanks to the collaboration of Saurik, BigBoss, and the major companies tracking your apps stats, it is now possible to opt out of being spied on via an application appropriately named PricaCy.

Pinch Media realized this fact, and took the lead in contacting me regarding getting this feature out there to all the users of jailbroken devices: they care.

With BigBoss, we then contacted all of the other providers, getting not only their blessing, but also their technical expertise in disabling their systems.

The result is PrivaCy: a new Settings panel that allows you to selectively opt-out of sending anonymous usage statistics to each of these providers.

This extension was a team effort, and was able to be executed as quickly as it was thanks to the help and interest of the companies involved.

I am positively surprised to see how the major tracking providers were proactive and willing to address the matter by collaborating with Saurik and BigBoss.

If you're slightly concerned about your privacy, I suggest you download PrivaCy, which is available for free from Cydia. Hopefully, Apple will release a similar feature to allow the opt out from data tracking for non-jailbroken iPhones also.

How to Fix Cydia Crashes

Sébastien Page ∙ August 14, 2009

A lot of people who recently jailbroke their iPhones are having issues with Cydia crashing when launching it. There is a quick and dirty fix for that and it requires to either SSH into your iPhone or use iPhoneBrowser and delete a few files.

Apparently the problem is caused by some corrupted repositories that make Cydia crash within the first few seconds of loading it.

To fix this, simply navigate to /var/lib/apt/lists and delete all the files in this folder except for the folder called "partial".

Then reboot your iPhone and launch Cydia. It should load without crashing.

QuickScroll Helps You Scroll Very Quickly

Sébastien Page ∙ August 13, 2009

QuickScroll is a new application available in Cydia that lets you scroll through documents and web pages very quickly.

Have you ever opened a long web page or PDF document on your iPhone looking for some information you know is way down the page?

Without QuickScroll, you have to keep scrolling down forever. Fortunately, with QuickScroll, it's just going to take you 3 taps and a couple seconds.

Once you have installed QuickScroll, simply tap 3 times anywhere on the page and a dialog will show up. Drag the green box up and down to quickly go wherever you want on the page.

If you're browsing a PDF document, tap 3 times and a dialog will appear. If you know what page you want to go to, enter it and it will take you there immediately.

I think QuickScroll is another must-have application utility that should be available on the iPhone by default.

Give it a try. You will love it.

iPromoCode Hooks You Up With Free iPhone Apps

Sébastien Page ∙ August 8, 2009

iPromoCode is a new application available in Cydia that lets you find promo codes for iPhone applications. I really like the concept of this app but unfortunately, it is very poorly implemented... After launching the app, you basically have 2 options available: Refresh, and Redeem App.

"Refresh" simply refreshes the screen to display a promo code for a random app, and I think that's the first weakness of iPromoCode. Rather than refreshing and displaying a random app, it would be much better if you could browse all promo codes available.

The second downside of this app is that you don't know what you get. It tells you the name of the application for which you can have promo codes but you don't have any other information about this app (no description, no screenshot, nothing, nada, zip).

The second option available to you is to redeem the app directly from your iPhone. Once again, that is poorly implemented and just didn't work when I tried iPromoCode.

iPromoCode has a lot of potential to be a very cool application, but it's not there yet.

Record Videos On Your iPhone 2G/3G With Cycorder

Sébastien Page ∙ July 24, 2009

Are you an iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G owner feeling left out by the lack of video recording on your iDevice? Rejoice because I have good news for you. You don't have to spend $$$ on the new iPhone 3GS to get video recording capability.

This might sound like old news to some of our readers, but for those of you who don't know, it is possible to record videos on your iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G thanks to an application called Cycorder. I wrote about Cycorder in the past but I think this app deserves more attention, especially from all the iPhone noobies (no offense).

Cycorder allows you to record videos on your iPhone at the maximum speed of the iPhone camera (6-15 frames per second). That's not great, but it's better than nothing...

How to record video on your iPhone 2G or iPhone 3G?

First, if you haven't already done so, you'll have to jailbreak your iPhone. If you're hesitant about jailbreaking, understand it's very safe and besides being able to record videos, there are many many other reasons to jailbreak your iPhone.

Then simply launch Cydia and install Cycorder.

One installed, open Cycorder and start recording videos. It's that simple!

When you record a video, it is stored as a .mov movie on your iPhone in /var/mobile/Media/Videos. Use iPhoneBrowser or SSH to get the video from your iPhone to your computer and then you can email it or put it on YouTube.

Here is a video I shot a few weeks ago with Cycorder. It will give you a good idea about the quality of sound and images.

How to Enable MMS on the iPhone 2G

Sébastien Page ∙ Updated September 30, 2009

There is a new simple hack that allows owners of a first gen iPhone to enable MMS on their iPhone 2G. Your iPhone has to be jailbroken to enable MMS. If you don't know how to jailbreak your iPhone, please read this.

Now go to Cydia and look for the application called ActivateMMS2G from the iSpazio source. Install and reboot your iPhone and bingo!

Very important: this hack only works on OS 3.0 and 3.0.1. Do not install on 2.X or 3.1. Thanks @Stilgar702 for the tip!