iOS

Animate or add conditional effects to notification banners with Yokumiru

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated February 5, 2021

Although the iPhone’s native notification system is faily stout in its present form, that’s not to say that it couldn’t benefit from a tiny bit of imagination. Perhaps that’s one reason why we see so many different jailbreak tweaks that change the aesthetics of iOS’ notification banners.

One of the latest of such releases is a new jailbreak tweak dubbed Yokumiru by iOS developer Plat_Ykor, which can augment incoming notification banners with slick animations, apply specialized badges to those that contain a user-designated keyword, or conceal the contents of those notification entirely until you’re ready to view them.

AltStore launches public beta to quell frustrating app crashes, official release imminent

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2021

It may come as no surprise that when apps side loaded with the AltStore application after January 28th exhibited a baffling crash on launch, jailbreakers began to notice. After all, many jailbreakers rely on the platform to install their jailbreak apps, including but not limited to Chimera, Odyssey, and unc0ver.

The official AltStore Twitter account publicly acknowledged the issue a day later on January 29th, claiming that the app crashing was due to “server-side changes” and that a fix would be imminent. While many jailbreakers waited for the opportunity to install their favorite jailbreak tool again, we offered an interim fix that involved using DNSCloak and Jailbreaks.app.

How to install Odysseyra1n on a checkra1n device

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2021

By default, the checkra1n jailbreak installs Cydia as the defacto package manager, and Cydia Substrate or Substitute can be used for tweak injection. But if you’re accustomed to the Chimera or Odyssey jailbreaks, then you might prefer to use Sileo for package management and libhooker for tweak injection instead, yet checkra1n’s jailbreak method offers many benefits over relying on certificates or signed apps.

If you’re wondering whether it’s possible to install Sileo and libhooker on your checkra1n device, then the astounding answer would be yes! A script called Odysseyra1n installs the entire bootstrap on your checkra1n device, allowing you to have an Odyssey-like experience on your checkra1n jailbreak.

CoolStar updates libhooker Configurator to v1.1.0 with crash fixes, other improvements

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2021

In case you missed it, CoolStar released a brand-new libhooker Configurator app last week so that users of the Odyssey and Odysseyra1n jailbreaks could have more granular control over their libhooker tweak injector.

In addition to letting users toggle libhooker on or off on the fly, libhooker Configurator also permitted individualized tweak toggling, disabling tweak injection for Web Pages, and individually configuring tweak injection for apps, SpringBoard, and even Daemon processes.

VPNCloak can help jailbreakers when the Jailbreaks.app certificate gets revoked

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 31, 2021

If you rely on a slide-loadable jailbreak such as Odyssey (iOS 13.0-13.7) or unc0ver (iOS 11, 12, and 13.0-13.5), then it can be devastating if your device suddenly reboots because of a dead battery or a glitch. When this happens, you’ll be without your jailbreak and any add-ons you installed until you can re-jailbreak again.

Sadly, with many signing service certificates being revoked left and right without notice and with AltStore suddenly not working for apps installed after January 28th, it almost seems like using these jailbreaks puts you right in the crossroads of frustration and unreliability. But perhaps it doesn’t need to.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Backtrix, croutons13, WebMessage, and more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated February 5, 2021

It’s that time of the week again, and as we prepare to bid adieu to an otherwise ordinary weekend, we’re reminded that it wouldn’t be a Sunday here at iDownloadBlog without a weekly recap of all the latest jailbreak tweak releases and news directly impacting the jailbreak community.

It’s that reason exactly that we come at you today with the latest iteration of our jailbreak tweak roundup, this time encompassing all the releases between Monday, January 25th and Sunday, January 31st. As usual, we’ll kick things off by showcasing our favorite releases from this past week first, and then we’ll outline everything else afterward.

My favorite accessories for the iPhone 12 Pro Max

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 2, 2023

It wasn’t long after acquiring my shiny new iPhone 12 Pro Max at the end of last year that I began scouring every corner of the internet for relevant accessories that I believed would complement my fast-paced and dynamic lifestyle.

Some of the peripherals I tried along the way became an instant hit with regard to my daily routine, and many others were quickly phased out after I became aware of alternative solutions that were, to be frank, superior.

Backtrix back-ports iOS 14’s Back Tap feature to jailbroken iOS 13 handsets

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 30, 2021

iOS 14 introduced an incredibly handy accessibility feature dubbed Back Tap, which grants iPhone users the ability to tap twice and/or three times on the back of their handset to invoke an action of their choosing.

Notably, this feature isn’t present on iOS 13, despite the fact that iOS 13-compatible handsets come equipped with the same accelerometer-based hardware that makes this possible.

SkinnyMenu removes the superfluous Look Up and Search options from iOS’ Action Menu

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 30, 2021

When you tap and hold on a word in a body of text on your iPhone or iPad, you’ll find yourself being presented with an Action Menu that contains useful options that vary depending on the app you’re in.

If you’re using a text editor, then you might see Copy, Cut, and Paste as options. In other areas of iOS, you may find those in addition to other superfluous options, like Look Up and Share to name a few.

Screenshots of checkra1n on Windows 10 surface, but release schedule still unclear

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 28, 2021

The checkra1n jailbreak tool is renowned for its use of a powerful bootrom exploit called checkm8, which can’t be patched by Apple via a software update because the exploit exists in the hardware of devices equipped with A7-A11 processors.

The checkra1n team initially released the checkra1n jailbreak as a macOS-only application in 2019, and it wasn’t until a good bit into 2020 that the tool picked up support for Linux. As for Windows, the checkra1n team planned to support it, but to this day hasn’t implemented official support in a public release. So what’s the hold up, exactly?

Facebook suing Apple over app privacy is a bit rich

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 28, 2021

Facebook, a privacy-last company, is reportedly preparing to sue Apple, a privacy-first company, over the App Tracking Transparency feature that's coming in the spring.

Page Dots 2 Numbers gives jailbreakers book-inspired Home Screen page numbers

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 28, 2021

At the bottom of your iPhone or iPad’s Home Screen are a series of dots – one for each page on your Home Screen. As you move between pages, a specific dot lights up to represent the page you’re currently looking at.

While I personally enjoy the Home Screen’s page dot indicator as it comes, I can certainly grasp how someone harder at seeing than I am could have more difficulty discerning which page they’re on. For that reason, a new and free jailbreak tweak called Page Dots 2 Numbers by iOS developer MinxterYT seems noteworthy.