iOS 13

CCCounters adds usage information to iOS’ Control Center toggles

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 16, 2020

It goes without saying that Control Center would be one of the more advantageous additions to iOS over the years. But despite how great Control Center is, that hasn’t stopped the jailbreak community from tweaking it in imaginative ways to make it better for the end user.

One such example is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak known as CCCounters by iOS developer 0xkuj. Once installed, CCCounters monitors Control Center toggle usage and displays the most recent instance in which those toggles were switched on or off.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: BigSnooze, iBlockX, Tenmetsu, & more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 15, 2020

The jailbreak community is in a perpetual state of anticipation as we wait for the checkra1n team to expand support for newer devices and for recent exploit developments to be released such that other jailbreak teams may take advantage of them in their tools. That aside, jailbreak tweak releases continue, and that’s why this piece exists.

In this roundup, we’ll talk about all the latest jailbreak tweaks released between Monday, November 9th and Sunday, November 15th. As you might come to expect, we’ll start by discussing our favorite releases first and then we’ll wrap things up with an outline of everything else afterward.

BigSnooze makes it less frustrating to snooze or stop an iPhone or iPad’s alarm

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 14, 2020

Anyone who uses their iPhone’s native alarm feature to wake up each morning probably understands the struggle of trying to turn the obnoxious noise off when it begins firing. On the other hand, you might only be half-awake when you attempt to do so, resulting in repeated blind taps on your nightstand only to find that you continuously miss the correct button to stop the alarm.

BigSnooze is a new jailbreak tweak developed by Cole Cabral that tries to remedy this problem by making the snooze and stop buttons easier to tap when you’re on the cusp of awake and incoherent while the alarm fires at the crack of dawn. The result? No more tapping around and missing the desired button with your finger when you’re groggy.

iBlockX offers jailbreakers deeper control over incoming notifications than Do Not Disturb

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 13, 2020

With iOS’ Do Not Disturb feature, you can effortlessly silence all incoming notifications that bombard your iPhone with the flip of a switch. Unfortunately, Do Not Disturb is a bit of an all-or-nothing solution. While you can individually silence contacts in the Messages app as an alternative, this doesn’t quite offer enough control if you use lots of third-party apps to keep in touch with friends and family.

iBlockX is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developers Greg0109 and MeBlackHat that strives to solve the aforementioned dilemma. It does so by handing users a smorgasbord of options for silencing calls and other notifications on a per-contact basis and for several different apps spanning user-configured time-frames whether those apps come preinstalled by Apple or not.

FreeTheSandbox discusses its plan for iOS 13.x jailbreak release, no ETA

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 12, 2020

Those eagerly waiting for a jailbreak with support for the concluding versions of the iOS & iPadOS 13 family before Apple officially released iOS & iPadOS 14 this Fall have two options, with the first being to wait for FreeTheSandbox to release the jailbreak they’ve been teasing for more than a month, or the second being to continue waiting for someone to pick up an exploit like the one just recently released by @_simo36.

If the FreeTheSandbox offering sounds like a better choice to you, then we’ve got some news for you. The official FreeTheSandbox Twitter account shared the following Tweet early Thursday morning to comment on the state of the jailbreak they’ve been working on:

PerfectSpotify lets jailbreakers augment the Spotify app’s user interface

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 12, 2020

Those who swear by Spotify can come up with an endless list of reasons as to why it’s a better music streaming platform than Apple Music, but despite what Spotify fans tell you, there are still a myriad of different ways that the Spotify app itself could be improved.

PerfectSpotify is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak created by iOS developer Luki120 that permits any Spotify user wielding a jailbroken handset to augment their Spotify app with various customizations of their choosing, whether that means enabling a better song library interface, hiding unwanted elements of the user interface, or something else.

Tenmetsu makes the iPhone’s rear-facing flash more like a pro flashlight

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 12, 2020

In addition to being a phone and an internet communications device, the iPhone could be described as a digital multitool. A great example is the handset’s rear-facing LED flash, which doubles as a flashlight when we find ourselves stranded in the dark.

Out of the box, a stock iPhone supports use of the aforementioned LED flash as a flashlight via the Lock Screen Quick Action button or the dedicated Control Center module. Users may also adjust the LED brightness in steps if they wish. Unlike a lot of flashlights on the market today, however, the iPhone’s LED flash seems lackluster in the feature department. That’s where a new jailbreak tweak dubbed Tenmetsu by iOS developer Plat-Ykor comes into play.

Exploit PoC targeting up to iOS 13.7 released

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 11, 2020

If you’ve been paying any attention to the iOS & iPadOS security research side of things recently, then you might’ve caught wind about a kernel bug discovered by Mohamed Ghannam (@_simo36) that held the capacity to pwn iOS & iPadOS 14.1 and below. Unfortunately, Ghannam later revealed that the bug didn’t work on iOS or iPadOS 14, and instead that it would only support variants of iOS & iPadOS 13.

While the aforementioned circumstances were indeed a bummer for those who’d been looking forward to a potential exploit release for iOS & iPadOS 14, the good news is that Ghannam officially released a kernel exploit proof of concept (PoC) dubbed 'OOB Events' on Wednesday with instructions for achieving kernel task port (tfp0) on iOS & iPadOS 13.7:

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Diamond, Sphere, VolumeMixer, and more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 8, 2020

As the final day of the weekend rears its ugly head, the good news is that we're back with another jailbreak tweak roundup showcasing all the latest releases from this past work week.

This roundup will encompass releases from Monday, November 2nd to Sunday, November 8th. As usual, we'll start things off by talking about our favorite releases first and then wrap things up with an outline of everything else afterward.

Diamond re-imagines the iPhone’s Dock and Status Bar in a big way

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 7, 2020

Two things that remain mostly the same since the very first iPhone launched in 2007 are the Status Bar and the Dock. Despite a few minor tweaks and adjustments by Apple over the years, they haven’t changed much, and it’s apparent that many users demand more from these essential interface elements.

Diamond is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer SouthernGirlWhoCode that re-imagines these interfaces on the iOS platform, and it does so by combining some of the most important features of the Dock and Status Bar into a single, aesthetically pleasing interface that can be customized in a bevy of different ways.

Sphere brings a Chat Heads-inspired multitasking UI to jailbroken iPhones

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 3, 2020

Apple makes it a breeze to switch from one recently-used app to another on your iPhone, but one area where this particular platform has always left a lot to be desired is the multitasking department.

Jailbreak tweak developers have created a myriad of novel iOS multitasking concepts over the years, but one of the latest examples to land on a mainstream repository is a tweak called Sphere by iOS developer SynnyG.

VolumeMixer permits individualized volume levels for each app on your iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ November 2, 2020

One of the things I’ve wished Apple would build into iOS and iPadOS for the longest time is the ability to control individual apps’ volume levels independently of one another. By that, I mean that I might want a higher volume level saved for my Music app as opposed to my Phone app, or perhaps a higher volume for my YouTube app saved as opposed to my favorite game apps.

While this isn’t currently a feature on stock handsets, the good news for those seeking functionality like what was described above is that a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called VolumeMixer by iOS developer Brend0n makes the concept into a very real feature.