iPhone

Stay up-to-date on the latest iPhone news and learn new tips and tricks with our comprehensive tutorials. From software updates to new features, we’ve got you covered.

My favorite accessories for the iPhone 12 Pro Max

A gold iPhone 12 Pro Max laid face down on a wooden table

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

iPhone 11 Pro

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

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.

WebMessage lets jailbreakers send SMS and iMessages via almost any computer

If, like so many others, your primary methods of communication comprise of iMessage and SMS via your iPhone, then you might take a particular liking to a newly released jailbreak tweak and computer application combination dubbed WebMessage by iOS developer sgtaziz.

WebMessage effectively turns your iPhone into a messaging server on demand, and by installing a special client on your computer, you can read and respond to both iMessage and SMS conversations via your computer even if it’s not a Mac.

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

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?

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

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.