iOS 11

This tweak lets you free up iPhone storage space by clearing app caches

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 4, 2019

Every app you use on your iPhone or iPad sports a base file size, but you may notice that their storage footprint increases with time as you use them; this is because they build a cache file, an accumulation of data that gets used by the app to help it load more quickly.

If you find it challenging to live within your handset’s soldered storage constraints, then clearing your apps’ caches could help you cope. Fortunately, a free jailbreak tweak called CacheClearer (iOS 11) by iOS developers Julio Verne and Ryan Petrich lets you clear those caches on demand.

HeySiri brings untethered ‘Hey Siri’ support to older devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 4, 2019

The latest iPhones and iPads are now so power efficient that you can effectively say “Hey Siri” whenever you want and have instant hands-free access to your virtual assistant; but that’s not the case with some of Apple’s older devices. Those such as the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus require that you be tethered to a power source for Hey Siri to work.

Albeit inconvenient, the chips in the aforementioned devices aren’t as power-efficient as those found inside of devices today; consequently, always-on Hey Siri would have an adverse impact on your battery performance. But if battery life is no object to you, then you can forcefully-enable Hey Siri on these handsets with a free jailbreak tweak dubbed HeySiri by iOS developer Julio Verene.

Electra Team says it won’t be long before Sileo becomes the default package manager for Electra

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 3, 2019

At the time of this writing, Sileo is an alternative and optional package manager that can be installed alongside Cydia on devices that have been jailbroken with Electra; but that will unquestionably change in the future.

As the Sileo beta preview progresses, the Electra Team will implement the framework to replace Cydia as the default package manager on the Electra platform, a move that could transpire as soon as Sileo comes out of its beta preview stages:

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Colorful Widgets, GoodWiFi, Gravity, & more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated March 17, 2019

Given all the exploit releases and jailbreak tool updates, it's been one heck of a week in the jailbreak community. If you’re looking for new and exciting ways to customize your jailbroken handset, then you’ve come to the right place.

This jailbreak tweak roundup will recap all the releases pushed through Cydia this week, starting with our favorites and ending with an outline of the rest afterward.

Electra 1.3.0 released with ‘next-gen jailbreakd2’ to prevent device freezes and improve performance

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 2, 2019

The Electra Team has released another update for the iOS 11-centric Electra jailbreak tool on Saturday bringing the version number up to 1.3.0. This update incorporates a respectable list of bug fixes and performance improvements, among other things.

The update was announced via Twitter by the Electra Team Saturday evening, and as it would seem, it replaces jailbreakd with a re-written alternative dubbed jailbreakd2 and resolves a bevy of freezing issues that had been reported by the tool’s user base:

Gravity brings realistic gravitational physics to your jailbroken handset’s Home screen

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 2, 2019

In all the years I’ve been jailbreaking iPhones and testing jailbreak tweaks, one classic has always stood out to me in particular, and that was Conrad Kramer’s famous Graviboard. Just as the name suggests, this tweak brought real gravitational physics to your handset’s Home screen, causing all your app icons to fall in the direction of gravity.

Albeit released almost nine years ago, Graviboard was one of the coolest reasons to jailbreak an iPhone back in the day. Given the magnitude of the original tweak’s popularity, it’s unsurprising that there have been a few reincarnations since then. One of the most recent remakes to pay a viit to Cydia is Gravity by iOS developer Julio Verne.

CyPush2 brings push notification support to Cydia

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 2, 2019

If you’ve ever jailbroken an iPhone or iPad before, then you should be familiar with Cydia as it’s the flagship package manager on the jailbroken iOS platform. Despite its rock-solid stability, Cydia has always been utilitarian by nature and isn’t known for fostering creeper-comfort features. Luckily, Saurik (Jay Freeman) empowered developers to tweak the Cydia app via Cydia Substrate a few years back.

There have only been a handful of Cydia-centric jailbreak tweaks released since Saurik first opened the gates to tweaking Cydia, some of them have been godsends. One great example is CyPush2, a tweak made by iOS developer Julio Verne to bring push notification support to the Cydia app.

GoodWiFi forces iOS to show more information about nearby Wi-Fi networks

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 1, 2019

iOS makes it easy to connect to a nearby Wi-Fi network, but there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that Apple doesn’t show you in the stock Wi-Fi Settings interface.

Enter GoodWiFi, a free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Julio Verne that extends the basic functionality of Apple’s stock Wi-Fi Settings page by adding detailed information about your (and surrounding) Wi-Fi networks.

Turkey brings a pitch-black Dark Mode theme to Cydia

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 1, 2019

It seems likely that Apple could implement an official Dark Mode feature for iOS 13, so wouldn’t it be nice if you could get the same aesthetic in your Cydia app?

If you’re on board with the aforementioned thought process, then you might appreciate a new jailbreak tweak called Turkey by iOS developer LaughingQuoll. As depicted in the screenshot examples above, Turkey brings a sleek Dark Mode experience to the Cydia package manager.

Electra version 1.2.7 released to fix a kernel panic issue on some devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2019

It was only a couple of hours ago that the Electra Team pushed two back-to-back updates for the Electra jailbreak tool, but those versions are already obsolete. The team just pushed another update to their iOS 11-centric jailbreak tool, bringing the version number up to 1.2.7.

The Electra Team announced the update earlier this evening via Twitter, elucidating how it was released to resolve a bug with tihmstar’s v1ntex exploit that would sometimes cause a kernel panic on certain devices:

Electra updated to version 1.2.6 to resolve various problems on A7 & A8 devices

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2019

The Electra Team pushed two subsequent updates to the Electra jailbreak tool Thursday evening with bug fixes and improvements, bringing the version number of iOS 11-centric tool to 1.2.6. The updates came just hours after Electra picked up support for tihmstar’s new v1ntex exploit.

The Electra Team announced the new updates via Twitter, adding that they would resolve problems users were experiencing on A7 and A8 devices concerning post-exploitation failures on iOS 11.2-11.4.1 and app crashing issues on iOS 11.4.x:

Pwn20wnd releases unc0ver v2.2.3, revises the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release with more improvements

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2019

On Thursday, hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd has released unc0ver v2.2.3 to the general public and revised the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release to beta 7 with various improvements for the public testing base.

Pwn20wnd announced both updates via Twitter just this morning, adding that the tool remains open-source throughout its continued development: