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macOS Big Sur 11.3 brings iOS game controller emulation for ‌Apple silicon Macs

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 24, 2021
Apple's promotional image for the macOS Big Sur software update for Mac computers

macOS Big Sur 11.3 allows gamers who run iPhone and iPad titles on their Apple silicon Macs to use a keyboard or a keyboard and mouse combination as an iOS game controller.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

Use Mac controls in touch-based iOS games. Map controller actions to keyboard keys. Map these to mouse buttons, too. No controller required at all!

Emulating iOS game controllers on M1 Macs

MacRumors has more on how that works:

When running an ‌iPhone‌ or ‌iPad‌ app, opening up the preferences brings up a Touch Alternatives and Game Control interface that can be used to make touch-based ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ apps run better with Mac controls.

With Controller Emulation toggled on, common game controller buttons are mapped to keyboard keys and mouse buttons. X, for example, is mapped to Q, the direction stick is mapped to WASD, and Y is mapped to E. L1 and L2 can be accessed by pressing Tab and Shift, respectively, and the Space Bar is the A button.

This new feature in macOS Big Sur 11.3 should make playing touch-optimized iPhone and iPad games on Apple silicon Macs much easier than before without having to use a game controller at all. If an iOS/iPadOS game doesn't support game controllers, this feature won't work.

→ How to use Sony and Microsoft game controllers with Apple devices

macOS Big Sur 11.3 lets you resize iPhone and iPad windows and provides the aforementioned Touch Alternatives feature for mapping taps, swipes, drags and tilts in iOS titles to keyboard keys (Controller Emulation and Touch Alternatives cannot be used simultaneously).

The update also adds support for the latest PlayStation 5 and Xbox One X controllers.

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CydiaPullDown enables Pull to Refresh in the Cydia app’s Changes tab

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 24, 2021

In a day and age where the iPhone is becoming more gesture-based, it peeves me that the Cydia app on jailbroken handsets hasn’t adopted more gesture-driven controls.

Perhaps one of the most obvious gesture controls that Cydia could benefit from is Pull to Refresh in the Changes tab – this would replace having to manually tap on the Refresh button at the top-left of the app just to see if there are any new jailbreak tweaks or extensions worth installing.

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StayWithMe prevents you from accidentally force-closing your most recently-used app

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 24, 2021

Despite the fact that force-closing all the apps in your App Switcher isn’t the best of practices on the iOS or iPadOS platform, it’s still something that I continue to see people do time and time again.

Perhaps the most painful part of it all is watching when someone accidentally force-closes an app that they didn’t intend to – usually their most recently-used app which they were trying to improve the performance of by freeing up system memory in the process of force-closing all their other apps.

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How to use Betelguese to install Odysseyra1n on a checkra1n’d device

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated April 4, 2021

A brand-new one-click application for macOS called Betelguese by @23Aaron_ and @hbkirb is now available that lets checkra1n’d iPhone and iPad users install Odysseyra1n on their handset via the convenience of a graphical user interface (GUI) as opposed to pasting lengthy and complicated commands into a traditional command line interface (CLI).

When Betelguese is complete, your checkra1n jailbreak transforms into Odysseyra1n, which means that it will utilize the Procursus bootstrap with Sileo as the default package manager and libhooker as the tweak injection method. These will replace Cydia and Cydia Substrate or Substitute for tweak injection — the process that handles your jailbreak tweaks — whichever of the latter you might’ve had installed at the time.

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Betelguese is a macOS-based one-click Odysseyra1n installer utility

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated April 4, 2021

Odysseyra1n is a custom Procursus-based bootstrap for checkra1n devices that installs Sileo for package management and libhooker for tweak injection. Previously, Odysseyra1n needed to be installed via Terminal with a command line interface. But that changes starting today with the release of Betelguese.

Betelguese is, in essence, a macOS-supported one-click Odysseyra1n installer for all iPhones and iPads running iOS or iPadOS 12, 13, or 14 that have already been jailbroken with checkra1n.

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Kok3shi jailbreak updated to v1.0 beta 2 with Cydia installer & other fixes

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 23, 2021

Just last week, SakuRα Development launched an all-new semi-untethered jailbreak tool dubbed kok3shi for 64-bit iOS 9.3-9.3.6 devices. It was a bit of a surprise given that most of today’s jailbreak-centric news revolves around iOS & iPadOS 13 or 14.

But as is the case with any initial jailbreak release, it would t be long before kok3shi received its first update. As such, SakuRα Development released a second public beta version of the kok3shi jailbreak, officially bringing it up to version 1.0 beta 2.

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Phoenix jailbreak for 32-bit iOS 9.3.5-9.3.6 updated to V6 with improvements

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 22, 2021

While much of today’s jailbreak-centric news revolves around iOS & iPadOS 13 and 14, every so often an older jailbreak tool gets an update that benefits end users on older firmware versions.

Today offers a rare example of the above sentiment after the Phoenix semi-untethered jailbreak tool for 32-bit devices running iOS 9.3.5-9.3.6 received an update to version 6 — the first in almost half a year.

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SafariBlocker gives jailbreakers more control over pop-ups in iOS’ Safari web browser

Anthony Bouchard ∙ March 22, 2021
Block unwanted pop-ups in Safari.

As much as I like the native Safari web browser on iOS and iPadOS, I’ve come to recognize that it’s far too easy to be jettisoned over to a new tab upon accidentally tapping on an advertisement or link on a web page.

Some third-party web browsers from the App Store already include native functionality that can stop this behavior from irritating the end user. But having a separate web browser app installed on my phone solely for this purpose just makes me feel like I’m installing another unnecessary app to clutter my Home Screen.

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