iOS

Customize your iPhone’s locking animation with LockAnim

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 5, 2019

Upon unlocking your iPhone or iPad, an aesthetically-pleasing animation brings all your Home screen's icons into view. On the other hand, pressing the side button to lock your device results in an instantly-black display, as if Apple never intended to incorporate a locking animation into iOS.

If you wish your handset’s locking animation had a bit more spunk than it does out of the box, then you’ll come to appreciate a free jailbreak tweak dubbed LockAnim by iOS developer Julio Verne. Just as the name implies, this tweak brings a bevy of new locking animations to the table, giving you a lot more choice in what you see when you press that side button on your handset.

This jailbreak tweak prevents incoming notifications from waking the display

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 5, 2019

Apple designed iOS to wake your locked handset’s display in the wake of incoming notifications, and while this helps to grab your attention, it also tends to grab the attention of others. You can easily prevent this by turning notifications off, but then you run the risk of missing important notifications altogether.

Love it or hate it, Apple’s notification-oriented display-waking feature is probably here to stay; but with a free jailbreak tweak called IllLookLater (iOS 11) by iOS developers N104 and Julio Verne, you can better control what wakes your display and what doesn’t.

Say hello to the new giraffe, shark, owl and boar Animoji in iOS 12.2

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 6, 2024

Apple introduced some new Animoji characters in iOS 12.2, with a giraffe, a shark, an owl and a warthog all available in today's second developer beta of iOS 12.2.

Pwn20wnd revises the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release again with exploit-related fixes

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 4, 2019

Hot off the heels of adding rootlessJB 3.0-like partial support for iOS 12.0-12.1.2 into the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release, hacker and unc0ver lead developer has announced yet another revision to the tool Monday evening.

Pwn20wnd announced the update via Twitter, denoting how the revision brings exploit-related fixes to the mix:

Pwn20wnd revises unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release with partial support for iOS 12.0-12.1.2

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 4, 2019

Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd added partial support for iOS 12.0-12.1.12 to the unc0ver v3.0.0 pre-release Monday morning, a move that follows closely in the footsteps of Jake James’ rootlessJB 3.0 tool, a rootless SSH-oriented iOS 12 jailbreak for developers; likewise, this doesn’t support A7, A8, or A12 devices.

The hacker notes that there are some significant asterisks here to consider before jumping onboard. Much like rootlessJB 3.0, unc0ver’s preliminary iOS 12 support does not comprise of Cydia or Cydia Substrate as certain jailbreak patches aren’t yet functional.

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:

Jake James releases rootlessJB 3.0, a rootless SSH-based iOS 12 jailbreak for developers

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 2, 2019

Talented hacker and software developer Jake James took the jailbreak community by surprise this weekend after releasing rootlessJB 3.0, a developer-focused rootless jailbreak tool for A9, A10, and A11 devices running iOS 12.0-12.1.2.

James announced the release of rootlessJB 3.0 via Twitter on Saturday, perhaps unsurprisingly stirring up quite of a bit of attention among his following:

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.