iPhone

Stay up-to-date on the latest iPhone news and learn new tips and tricks with our comprehensive tutorials. From software updates to new features, we’ve got you covered.

Assistability13 augments iOS 13’s Reachability interface with shortcuts

When it comes to the features people use most on their iPhones, Reachability is somewhat of a moot point, especially for those with hands large enough to finagle with Apple’s largest handsets. Apple provides a way to disable Reachability if you never use it, but wouldn’t it make sense to repurpose the interface instead of disabling it entirely?

Playing on this train of thought is a newly released jailbreak tweak called Assistability13 by iOS developer DODGraphics, which implements an AssistiveTouch-inspired shortcut palette into iOS’ native Reachability interface.

7 cool widgets you can create in Shortcuts on iPhone

Shortcuts widget showing eight iOS shortcuts on iPhone Home Screen

With the Shortcuts app on your iPhone and iPad, you can do a lot of nifty things. You can add an album to your Home screen, use dark mode on websites, and enforce picture-in-picture for YouTube on iPad. You can also use the app to create Shortcuts widgets for your Today View screen or Home Screen. This lets you do things faster and easier because you don’t have to open an app first. For some ideas and suggestions, here are seven cool widgets that you can create in Shortcuts for your iPhone and iPad.

This tweak disables the voice recording button in iMessage

If you use Apple’s Messages app as your primary means of talking to people each day, then you’re probably accustomed to seeing the app’s voice message button in the text message composition field. This button lets you record yourself speaking and send your voice as an audio clip as opposed to typing it out or using Dictation to send a written message.

While this feature has its uses for a small subset of niche scenarios, you’ll probably very seldom use it if you don’t like recording yourself and prefer sending written messages. For those people, a new and free jailbreak tweak called AudioMessageBeGone by iOS developer burrit0z swoops in to save the day.

Cydia Impactor alternative ‘AltDeploy’ officially released for side-loading apps

Those using the side-loadable Chimera and unc0ver jailbreak apps have experienced quite a rough patch these past couple of months given Cydia Impactor’s current broken state and the scarcity of reliable signing services that don’t get their certificates revoked shortly after going online. These issues have made it unusually challenging to get the jailbreak(s) running again after the host device endures a power cycle.

Saurik hinted in November that he would be looking into ways to fix Cydia Impactor, but we’ve since passed the expected ETA for such an update, prompting members of our very own jailbreak community to take action themselves. The newfangled efforts have resulted in a Cydia Impactor alternative for macOS called AltDeploy by @pixelomer.