Proximity Sensor

PocketProtector prevents accidental butt-dials on jailbroken iPhones

We’ve all heard of butt or pocket-dialing – the act of accidentally calling someone with your phone as it sits in your pocket. In theory, this seems a lot less likely on modern devices that require Face ID or Touch ID authentication to function; nevertheless, it still seems to happen to some people either because they don’t lock their device before pocketing it or because of some other mind-bending anomaly.

Despite how seemingly impossible butt-dialing or inadvertent smartphone operations on a pocketed phone might be at first glance, those who experience these anomalies for one reason or another can now take advantage of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called PocketProtector by iOS developer Brady Holland (Squiddy) to prevent them from happening, once and for all.

New Apple patent would embed light sensors into the display, hints at iPhone 8 technology

The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) today awarded Apple a patent describing a process for embedding light-sensing sensors into a mobile display. The invention, titled “Electronic devices with display-integrated light sensors,” potentially paves the way for next year's iPhone.

Apple's new patent specifically mentions the ambient light and proximity sensors, which are found on the front face of the device, as being integrated into the display assembly.

According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and pundits in the know, like Daring Fireball's John Gruber, the iPhone 8—or whatever a 2017 iPhone (or Tenth Anniversary iPhone) ends up being called—should be a major design departure from prior models as it would supposedly get rid of the chin and forehead bezels by integrating Touch ID and the front-camera along with other sensors directly into the display.

Wave2Wake lets you lock & unlock your iPhone with its proximity sensor

Every iPhone has a proximity sensor at the top that helps turn off the display whenever you have your phone close to your face during a phone call, and utilizing that sensor for other purposes is nothing new to the jailbreak community.

With Wave2Wake, which is a new jailbreak tweak that utilizes the proximity sensor, you can use it to lock and unlock your device.

ProximityLock lets you lock your iPhone with its proximity sensor

Those of you still rocking a jailbreak despite these dry last few weeks have some new jailbreak tweaks to check out this weekend.

One of those is ProximityLock, which is a new freebie that lets you lock your iPhone with nothing more than the proximity sensor by waving your hand over, or putting your finger over the sensor right by the front-facing camera and ear speaker.

Apple’s smudge-detection patent prevents an iPhone screen from accidentally turning off

When you bring up an iPhone to your ear to take or receive a phone call, the handset taps the built-in proximity sensor near the ear piece to detect that you're holding your phone up and then turns off the display to prevent spray input from your face.

But sometimes a smudge from your finger can block the path of light back to the phone's sensors, prompting the device to shut down the display because it thinks you're holding the device near your head.

A new invention Apple was granted a patent for was published Tuesday by the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), describing a smudge-detection method designed to prevent an iPhone screen from accidentally turning off due to smudges.

How to use the iPhone’s proximity sensor as an Activator gesture

ProximityActivator is a recently released tweak that adds a new proximity sensor gesture to your list of Activator gestures. This makes it possible to perform certain actions simply by waving your hand in front of your iPhone.

In the video example that follows, I'll show you how I can invoke the App Switcher by waving my hand in front of my iPhone 5's proximity sensor. 

FaceOff 7 is the sensor-based equivalent of Activator for iPhone

When the Moto X was announced last year, I was admittedly somewhat jealous of its various sensor-based contextual awareness and voice recognition features. In layman's terms, the handset is one of the more interesting Android smartphones on the market to say the very least. But as someone that has been a loyal iPhone user for several years, it wasn't quite enough to make me jump mobile platforms.

Thankfully, a new package has arrived on Cydia that allows me to experience the best of both worlds… 

How to emulate the iPhone’s Sleep button with the proximity sensor

SleekSleep is a recently released jailbreak tweak that allows you to emulate a press of the sleep button by means of the iPhone's proximity sensor. This basically means that you can sleep or wake your iPhone using a wave or swiping motion in front of the device.

As we always like to do here at iDB, we've taken the liberty to record a walkthrough of SleekSleep so that you can see exactly how it works. Take a look past the break to see this interesting tweak in action.

Faster Facebook Messenger with improved scrolling now available

It's been over a month since we've stumbled upon any solid piece of news concerning Facebook's standalone Messenger iPhone app. Last time we heard, Facebook has added the ability to pick photos from your Instagram albums to send to Messenger friends.

Actually, that was the only major development concerning the software since May 2012. In response to Wednesday's launch of iOS 7, the social networking giant on Monday pushed an iOS 7-ready version of Messenger with improved scrolling, faster startup times and more...

WaveOff: toggle your iPhone’s screen with a wave gesture

If you own a jailbroken iPhone, you can now toggle its screen on and off using a simple wave gesture. WaveOff, a tweak released yesterday on Cydia's BigBoss repo, allows end users to move their hands to and from across the devices proximity sensor to turn toggle its screen.

It's a bit on the gimmicky side, but WaveOff is a good tweak for those moments when you want to show off in front of your friends and family. Have a look at our video walkthrough inside to see what I mean.