Since his firing in 2012 over refusing to sign an apology to customers concerning the Maps debacle, Apple's former Senior Vice President of iOS software, Scott Forstall, has focused his energies on producing Broadway shows. Thanks to a rare interview with Scott published last week, we now have a nice glimpse of Apple's creative process during Steve Jobs's heyday.
If you use Apple's Shortcuts app for iOS automation and would like to turn on or wake up your Apple TV and its connected TV set on demand, we have just the right shortcut for you.
Many people, including myself, reach for their iPhone after waking up every morning to check their missed notifications and catch up on their favorite app(s). But how would you like it if your iPhone knew what you wanted to do every morning and prepared that information before you ever woke up?
A new jailbreak tweak dubbed Good Morning by iOS developer Justin Proulx is a brilliant first step in this direction.
Last Friday, the Sileo Team received backlash from prominent jailbreak developers and hackers because the Sileo package manager beta preview prevented the BigBoss repository from serving ads to its users. The situation gave rise to concerns that BigBoss could eventually cease to exist because the repository wouldn’t generate any revenue from its Sileo-centric user base.
Fortunately, the public spat involving several prominent members of the jailbreak community, including hackers and jailbreak tweak developers, appears to have paid off. A Tweet shared Monday evening by the Sileo Team demonstrates a slight change of heart and a departure from the original plan:
iOS is an outstanding mobile operating system, but it often leaves a lot to be desired in the multitasking department, especially on the iPhone. Luckily, the jailbreak community usually has some sort of remedy for problems of this nature.
A new free jailbreak tweak called Launchtron by iOS developer Nepeta is just one of such remedies; it’s fundamentally a quick-access app launcher that you can summon from just about anywhere with a swipe. Furthermore, it can help you access apps more quickly than you could with iOS’ native App Switcher.
If you own an iPhone, then a significant percentage of your usage likely comprises of text messaging. Notifications for incoming messages typically stack up on the Lock screen until you acknowledge them, but if you fancy something that looks nicer, then you might appreciate a new jailbreak tweak called MessageBubbles by iOS developer Kurrt.
As the name implies, MessageBubbles replaces the Lock screen’s standard notification system with a unique message bubble-centric animation. In the screenshot example above, you’ll see how the background stays black as message bubbles from various apps roll into view. You’ll also notice how the message bubbles are color-matched to the app they originate from. This particular combination looks great on OLED displays, but also works on LCD displays.
Hacker and unc0ver lead developer Pwn20wnd officially released unc0ver v2.1.1 to the public Sunday afternoon. Unlike the revision that we reported about yesterday, this release is not a public beta.
Pwn20wnd announced unc0ver v2.1.1’s release via Twitter, linking to the official GitHub page that cites all the recent changes in this particular version:
Anyone with a jailbroken device will want to customize it outside of Apple’s stock parameters, and that means installing jailbreak tweaks to modify its stock behavior.
In this roundup, we’ll talk about all the jailbreak tweaks released from Monday, January 7th to Sunday, January 13th. As usual, we’ll discuss our favorite releases first and then outline the rest afterward.
There was no shortage of exciting jailbreak-centric news this past week, but perhaps the most captivating tidbit of all was the announcement that tihmstar was tinkering with an exploit that could hack a subset of devices running iOS 11.2.6-11.4.1 – specifically those with headphone jacks.
It didn’t take long after the initial announcement for tihmstar to share that he had achieved tpf0, which permits arbitrary reads and writes to a device’s kernel memory. On the other hand, a pair of Tweets shared just weekend shed new light on the hacker’s intentions involving said exploit:
Hacker and unc0ver jailbreak tool lead developer Pwn20wnd pushed the fifth revision to the unc0ver v2.1.1 pre-release this weekend with another handful of bug fixes and improvements.
Citing Pwn20wnd’s official GitHub page, this is the fifth revision to the unc0ver v.2.1.1 pre-release since its conception one week ago. The latest revision brings the changes listed below:
After refreshing my Cydia sources this week, I happened upon a peculiar package dubbed Harpy by iOS developer midnightchips. But more importantly, I was pleasantly surprised after tapping on the package to learn more about it.
As it would seem, Harpy is a lightweight networking app that can help you control the users on your local Wi-Fi network or Personal Hotspot. Right out of the box, Harpy provides users with the following features:
iPhone and iPad are held back in the productivity department in part due to Apple's decision not to adopt a more comprehensive menu system beyond iOS's weird popovers.