iOS

S8Edge simulates the aesthetics of Samsung’s S8 Infinity display on iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated March 2, 2018

Whether you're coming to the iPhone from the Samsung world or you just like the look and feel of Samsung’s latest smartphone displays, a new free jailbreak tweak called S8Edge by iOS developer Bruno Andrade helps you feel right at home by simulating the Samsung S8 Infinity display on your flat-screened iPhone.

The tweak accomplishes its task by rounding the corners of everything displayed on your screen and adding a darkened gradient to both side edges of your screen that help reproduce the look and feel of the Samsung S8 Infinity display when looking at it head-on.

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FullSafari brings iPad-like tabbed browsing to iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 16, 2017

There's a significant difference in usability between the tabbed browsing experience in Safari on the iPad versus the paged browsing experience in Safari on the iPhone; with that in mind, some might prefer the former.

A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed FullSafari by iOS developer Bensge gives even iPhone and iPod touch users access to the iPad-like tabbed browsing experience in Safari, providing a more capable web browser in the palm of your hand.

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IBM’s new Garage initiative aims to accelerate development of iOS enterprise apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 15, 2017

Building upon the Apple-IBM enterprise mobility partnership established three years ago, Big Blue (that's a nickname for IBM) today announced a new initiative to help accelerate the development of MobileFirst enterprise apps for iPhone and iPad.

Upcoming app development studios, called Garages, will soon go online in Shanghai, China and Bucharest, Romania, in addition to IBM's existing MobileFirst for iOS studio in Bangalore, India.

IBM's other app studios and Garages can be found in US cities Atlanta, Cupertino, Toronto and Chicago. Plus, the company has committed to establishing new app studios in Shanghai, China and Bucharest, Romania. Lastly, mobile enterprise apps designed by IBM can now be embedded with the cognitive capabilities of its Watson cognitive system.

Bridget van Kralingen, Senior Vice President, IBM Industry Platforms, said:

Four years ago, we made enterprise mobility a reality, and we’ve seen how transformative mobile can be. Today, companies are now reigning in mobile faster than ever, creating a critical need for powerful innovations that will reinvent how they do business. We’re combining the power of mobile with cognitive and analytics to continue to push the market forward.

IBM has officially named some of the clients adopting iOS enterprise apps for their own employees, such as Lufthansa Group, City Furniture, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines.

Since its introduction three years ago, the partnership between Apple and IBM has resulted in several billion dollars in signings with more than 3,800 client engagements supported by market-ready and custom iOS apps designed for professions across all industries, including store associates, flight attendants and field technicians.

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Eleven: an upcoming collection of iOS 11-like jailbreak tweaks

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

If you’re jailbroken on iOS 10 and yearn to make your device look like it's running iOS 11, then you’re in luck because prominent developers are taking on a full-scale project to bring several iOS 11 features to the jailbreak community before the operating system update is released this Fall.

The project is being undertaken by iOS developers LaughingQuoll and Antique_Dev, and will be called Eleven. It will be a collection of multiple different jailbreak tweaks that each focus on specialized features of iOS.

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How to disable ‘Behind the Lyrics’ pop-ups in Spotify

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 15, 2017

Spotify is perhaps one of the largest names in the music-streaming industry, and while Apple Music is indeed catching up, a large number of iPhone users are still using the third-party alternative.

Despite its popularity, many Spotify users aren’t fond of the persistent Behind the Lyrics feature that interrupts your view of the album artwork whenever music is playing.

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Choose your default web browser in iOS with BrowserChanger10

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated March 28, 2023

Everyone has a favorite web browser they prefer to use on their computer, but when it comes to the iPhone or iPad, Apple forces all URL links to open in Safari by default.

You can change this with a new free jailbreak tweak called BrowserChanger10 by iOS developer HiDaN, which lets you choose a new default web browser for opening URL links.

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This tweak makes Spotify album artwork display in full screen mode

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 13, 2017

When listening to your songs in the Spotify Music app, the album artwork is typically scaled down slightly so that there’s a bit of empty space in between it and the edge of the display.

A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed SpotifyFullScreenArtworkUI by iOS developer theo78825 scales up the album artwork a little bit more so it fills the whole top half of the screen.

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Make unlocking non-Touch ID devices quicker with Accelerated Unlock

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 13, 2017

Devices that don’t support Touch ID or just aren’t utilizing the feature typically resort to passcodes as the next best form of security. On the other hand, there tends to be a rather annoying delay after pressing the Home button before the passcode interface finally appears.

A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed Accelerated Unlock by iOS developer Youssef Mikhail does away with this unwanted delay and makes unlocking your device seem faster.

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Basic analytics coming to iOS 11’s Podcasts app

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Like many stock apps in iOS 11, Apple's Podcasts app has been redesigned around an Apple Music-style appearance with consolidated tabs, bigger thumbnails and more.

As reported by Recode's Peter Kafka and Six Colors' Jason Snell, Apple is also making some notable changes to the way podcast feed works so that both podcast creators and advertisers can see what listeners actually like.

As for users, they'll be able to download full seasons of their favorite podcast shows and the Podcasts app will determine if a podcast should be played in chronological order.

There are other updates focused on making podcast creators' lives easier as well. According to Apple's own spec sheet regarding the Podcasts app updates in iOS 11, the updated Apple Podcasts specification now provides the following features:

Podcast creators can now provide clear, concise titles. Improvements to how episodes are ordered and recommended within a season. The ability for new subscribers to receive the full current season in their Library. Quick play lets users pick up listening where they left off.

Podcasts will be able to define individual seasons and explain whether an episode is a teaser, a full episode or bonus content. Snell explains that these extensions will be read by the Podcasts app and used to present a podcast in a richer way than the current linear approach in iOS 10.

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As explained, Apple is going to share more data with podcast creators and advertisers.

With basic analytics, podcast creators will have the ability to see when listeners play individual episodes, what part of individual episodes they listen to, which parts they skip over and when they stop listening. To protect your privacy and prevent targeted advertising, Apple will provide aggregated, anonymized performance data that cannot be tracked to individual users.

Currently, podcast creators can see when someone has downloaded an individual episode, but that's about it when it comes to analytics.

How do you like these changes coming to the Podcasts app?

Share your opinion in the comments section below.

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Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Apace, SocialDownloader, TimeMover, & more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 11, 2017

It has been a busy week amid preparations for WWDC 2017, but that hasn't stopped the jailbreak community from hammering out jailbreak tweaks to improve the aesthetic and function of jailbroken iPhones and iPads.

In this piece, we'll talk about all of the jailbreak tweaks that were released throughout the past work week. We'll start first by going in detail with our favorite released, then we'll outline all of the rest afterwards.

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AdvancedStatusTime lets you customize the Status Bar time format

Anthony Bouchard ∙ June 10, 2017

Your Status Bar is home to a digital clock that you can glance at throughout the day to keep track of time, but whether or not you like the way it’s formatted out of the box remains to be seen.

A new jailbreak tweak dubbed AdvancedStatusTime by iOS developer Maxwell Lang gives you a way to customize the time text string so that your time is displayed in the Status Bar how you want it to be.

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