Swipe to call, text or email in the Contacts app with QuickGestures

When a fan war breaks out over what the ‘best mobile platform’ is, I usually try to stay out of it. I like iOS better than Android, and believe it to be the superior of the two. But I know that’s just my personal opinion, and not a fact.

Truth be told, I actually like quite a few things about Android. The way it handles contacts, for instance, is great. You can text, email or call someone with a quick swipe or tap. It’s too bad I can’t do that in iOS. Or can I?

With this new jailbreak tweak from iLendSoft I can. Well sort of. The package allows you to quickly communicate with your friends and family in the Contacts app using 3 touch gestures: swipe left, swipe right, and long-hold.

Once installed, you’ll find these configurable options in your Settings app, as usual. You can assign 1 of 4 actions to each of the aforementioned gestures: call, message, e-mail, or FaceTime, and there’s a few other miscellaneous toggles.

In my testing, the tweak worked great. I set messaging as the left swipe, calling right swipe, and email long-hold. And sure enough, every time I swiped to the left on a person’s name in Contacts, a composition window popped up.

But as good as it is, I never found it very useful—most of the time I forgot the tweak was even installed. That doesn’t mean that others won’t find it handy though. And if you think that might be you, you can find QuickGestures in the BigBoss repo for $0.99.

Have you tried out QuickGestures yet?

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LockToggle adds handy settings toggles to your Lock screen

Folks who have yet to find a Lock screen-settings-toggle tweak that suits their needs will be happy to know that another one has been added to the pile this weekend. LockToggle, by developer Haifisch, gives you quick, one-touch access to some of the most common iOS settings, without you having to unlock your device…

As you can see in the screen shot above, or in the video below, the tweak accomplishes that by adding system toggles to your Lock screen. The toggles are represented by a scrollable list of icons that, by default, rest on top of the ‘slide to unlock’ bar, and include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, screen brightness, volume and many more.

The tweak itself is about as straightforward as they come. Once installed, you can enable it from within your Settings app, as well as move the icons to the top of your Lock screen. Unfortunately, that’s about all you can do—there’s no way to pick which toggles are displayed, and no way [that I've found] to rearrange them.

But for what it is, LockToggle works great. Tapping an icon immediately enables a disabled setting, and vice versa. I don’t think it’s for me, as I’m fairly happy with Lockbar Settings Lite, but I’m sure other folks will find it very useful. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, you can find in Cydia, in the BigBoss repo, for free.

Have you tried LockToggle yet? Thoughts?

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Cydia: ‘The Quick Brown Fox’ Enhances Your Stock iOS Keyboard

The Quick Brown Fox is a new jailbreak tweak for iOS that adds a number of new features to the stock keyboard on iPhone and iPod touch. For starters, Auto Twins automatically inserts a closing pair of the sign you type. If you type an opening bracket or parentheses, for instance, this tweak will automatically insert the matching closing mark right next to it.

Furthermore, enabling Auto Space will insert a space automatically following specific keys that you enable. This functionality is similar to the space that is automatically added after you finish a sentence with a period, but expanded for other characters such as exclamation marks, number signs or colons. 

Last, toggle on Jumping Keys to have the alphabet keyboard shown instantly after tapping selected keys. By default, the alphabet keyboard returns after you insert an apostrophe; with this tweak, that functionality is expanded to any key that you wish.

The Quick Brown Fox, which pays homage to the English-language pangram of the same name, is available for free on Cydia from the ModMyi repository. The tweak supports jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 5 or later. If you give the tweak a spin, let us know how it works for you.

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Top 10 Cydia Jailbreak Apps

The jailbreak community has been churning out iPhone apps since before the App Store existed. Some of those apps even served as – ahem – “inspiration” for Apple-made iOS features (Wi-Fi Sync and MobileNotifier come to mind). But as much as iOS has evolved, Cydia is still a hotbed of innovation. Which of its apps stand out? Let’s take a look at the all-time best jailbreak apps.

Before you can install any of these apps and tweaks, you’ll need to jailbreak your iDevice. If you haven’t done so yet, check out our guide forjailbreaking any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on iOS 6.1.2.If you are using iOS 6.1.3, so sorry about that and can not escape.

Without further ado, here are our picks for the all-time best jailbreak apps in Cydia.

Messages

Messages Cydia tweak allows you to compose or reply messages from anywhere. Check the video review after the break.

Messages jailbreak tweak is available in Cydia under the BigBoss repo for $3.99.

Auxo

Many jailbreak developers have tried to reinvent iOS multitasking, but Auxo stands out as the one Apple is most likely to copy.

Auxo’s killer feature is its multitasking cards, which show live previews of open apps. But it’s the tiny details (settings toggles, multitouch swipe-to-dismiss, expanded music controls) that make it an all-time great.

Zephyr

Tired of always pressing and double-tapping your iPhone’s home button? Zephyr will replace it with a series of intuitive gestures.

After installing Zephyr, a short swipe up from the bottom of the screen will bring up the multitasking switcher. A longer swipe up will close your current app. Swipe from the left to return to your most recent app.

SBSettings

How could we not include SBSettings? This classic jailbreak tweak gives you a quick drop-down menu for a variety of system toggles. You can customize it, theme it, and even view it in Notification Center.

iFile

iFile, a full-fledged iOS file manager, sits next to SBSettings in the pantheon of all-time great Cydia apps. It gives you complete control over your device, at root level.

Copy, paste, rename, change permissions … iFile hits all the marks you’d want a file manager to hit. Unless you’re familiar with the iOS file structure, though, we’d recommend using with caution.

Winterboard, Dreamboard

Want to radically alter the look and feel of iOS? The classic Winterboard and newer Dreamboard have you covered.

The apps themselves are only the starting points. Cydia is chock full of themes, and your level of customization is only limited by developers’ imaginations.

IntelliscreenX, LockInfo

Want to pimp your lockscreen? Both IntelliscreenX and LockInfo have you covered. They let you customize its look and the information it shows.

LockInfo is the more customizable of the two, letting you tweak nearly every aspect of your notifications. IntelliscreenX is simpler and more streamlined, and – as a nice bonus – includes Messages+ with your purchase.

Dashboard X 2.0

Android has long embraced widgets, but – apart from a couple in Notification Center – Apple hasn’t allowed them in iOS. Dashboard X 2.0 puts that decision back in your hands.

After installing Dashboard X 2.0, you can place any Cydia widget (usually meant for Notification Center) on your homescreen. Everything from your Facebook feed to HTC-like weather widgets are fair game.

My3G

If your carrier doesn’t yet support FaceTime over 3G/LTE, check out My3G. It lets you use any Wi-Fi-restricted app over your mobile data network.

Activator

Activator is one of the most basic – and useful – jailbreak apps. It’s the iOS equivalent of “If This Then That.”

Choose a trigger action (like sliding on the status bar, triple-pressing the home button, or speaking a voice command), and the desired result (like opening a specific app, or activating another tweak). Activator takes care of the rest.

How to install

To get any of these top jailbreak apps, open Cydia (it installs automatically with your jailbreak) and search away. Paid apps require an Amazon or Paypal account.

All of these apps are available in Cydia’s default repositories. Several still haven’t been updated for iOS 6 (we’re waiting on you, Quasar), but Cydia usually prevents you from buying incompatible apps.

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Safari Upload Enabler finally updated with support for iOS 6

Folks who have been around the jailbreak community for a while will likely remember a popular tweak called Safari Upload Enabler. Before Apple added the ability in Safari to upload photos and videos in iOS 6, it was one of the only ways you could natively upload files from within the mobile browser.

Well we have some good news today for all of you jailbreakers, Safari Upload Enabler has finally been updated with support for iOS 6. Developed by H. Samara and N. Bassen, the new version of the tweak is out in Cydia now with a number of improvements, including a new Dropbox API and more…

Here’s the full change log for version 1.2.1:

• Support for iOS 6.x extending the iOS 6 upload capabilities
• New Dropbox API
• Photo picker: new option to show preview before selection
• Photo picker improvements/bug fixes
• New localizations: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal & Brazil), Romanian, Slovak, and Swedish

As before, the tweak installs itself into mobile Safari and removes the block that Apple put in place to keep the browser from uploading certain things. Once installed, a file browser will pop up upon you tapping ‘upload’ web links. And also as before, you can configure all of the options from your Settings app.

Obviously, there are tons of third party applications that allow you to upload pictures and videos (like Facebook and Twitter) to the web, and with iOS 6 you can even do it within Safari. But using Safari Upload Enabler, you can upload all kinds of different files—like a resume to CareerBuilder or a recipe to Barista.

To be honest, I don’t ever really need to upload anything in mobile Safari—I rarely use it. But I can see how using this tweak, and maybe Safari Download Manager and iFile, could really expand the abilities of your iOS device. If you’re interested, you can find Safari Upload Enabler in the BigBoss repo for $2.99.

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Create shortcuts for up to 7 of your favorite apps with SubIc0ns

There’s no shortage of jailbreak tweaks that allow you to quickly access your favorite apps. I can think of a few right off the top of my head including Axis, Grabby, and JellyLock. And today, we’ve got another one to add to the list.

SubIc0ns, by developer ClausCartel, is a new tweak that allows you to add up to 7 app shortcuts to a hidable window that can be accessed via any Activator function. This gives you quick access to these apps from anywhere in iOS…

Upon installing the tweak, all of its options can be configured from the Settings app. Here you’ll find a toggle to enable/disable the tweak, set its activation method, and program the shortcuts. iPhone 5 users can set up to 7 of them.

The idea behind SubIc0ns is great—a menu of app shortcuts that can be accessed from anywhere in iOS—but the execution is awful. The menu looks terrible, and the animation that reveals it is extremely choppy. I also had stability issues.

With that being said, it’s hard for me to recommend the tweak. But to be fair, it does work as advertised (just not very well), and it can only get better from here. If you’re interested in checking it out, you can find it in the ModMyi repo for free.

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‘Messages’ lets you compose and reply to messages from anywhere in iOS

Sometimes I feel like I’m one of the only people in the world that doesn’t use biteSMS. Don’t get me wrong, I really like some of the tweak’s features, like quick reply and compose. But in my experience, it’s not very stable and tends to clash with the stock Messages app.

That being said, you can understand my excitement when I saw ‘Messages’ pop up in my Cydia stream today. The new jailbreak tweak, by Ma Jun (the creator of Bulletin), offers up biteSMS-like quick compose and reply features, without all of the extra biteSMS fluff…

Messages essentially allows you to compose and reply to SMS and iMessages from anywhere in iOS. It blends in perfectly with the stock Messages app, unless you decide to go with the ‘Black Style’ UI option, and can be initiated by both Activator and QuickDo functions.

But before we get into functionality, let’s talk about the tweak itself. Once installed, all of its options can be configured from the Settings app. And those options include setting Activator and QuickDo actions, the ability to disable quick reply and other pertinent toggles.

The quick reply feature is by far my favorite, as it enables you to reply to messages from the Lock screen without unlocking your phone. All you have to do is slide the icon to the right on a Messages notification and the conversation will appear with the keyboard up and ready.

And the quick compose feature is just as easy to use. Once you’ve chosen your Activator/QuickDo action, you can open up a New Message in any app or from the Lock screen. Yes, you can technically already do this. But Messages offers some advantages, like adding media.

I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any stability problems with the tweak, and compose/reply windows load quickly. And if you’re not using biteSMS or something similar, I recommend checking it out. It’s $3.99, with a free trial, and you can find it in the BigBoss repo.

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Quickly enable the Passcode on your device with TapTapPass

By default, it takes you at least 6 steps to enable your device’s Passcode from your Home screen. You have to launch the Settings app, navigate through a couple of screens to the Passcode Lock window, and set it up.

While this process is just fine for folks who keep their iOS devices Passcode-protected at all times, it’s fairly tedious for those that only enable the security feature every once in a while. Luckily, there’s TapTapPass…

TapTapPass is a jailbreak tweak that allows you to enable your device’s Passcode with a tap, gesture or any other Activator function. So if you don’t usually have it on, but need to for some reason, you can do so quickly.

The package doesn’t have a Springboard icon or a Settings pane. You configure everything from within the Activator app, which can be accessed either by its Home screen icon, or the Activator panel in your Settings app.

Once you’ve chosen an Activator function, you’re all set. Now anytime you perform that function—shake your device, double tap your Status bar, etc.—TapTapPass will activate the default iOS Passcode for your device.

Upon unlocking the device with the Passcode, the feature will be disabled. And you can either use the function to lock it again, or use the Sleep button to perform a standard, no-password lock. It’s as simple as it sounds.

I wish the tweak would allow you to use a Simple 4-digit Passcode, but other than that it’s pretty solid. I won’t be keeping it, but if you think you could benefit from something like this, I recommend checking it out.

TapTapPass is available in Cydia, in the ModMyi repo, for free.

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'iWidgets' from Cydia store

iWidgets v1.0.1 tweak for adding widgets to the home screen. After installation iWidgets deb, simply tap and hold any empty space on the home screen to bring up the menu. The two default widgets are merely samples. To download the awesome widgets, search for “iWidget” in the Cydia application.

What’s new in iWidgets version 1.0.1  iPad support for all orientations. Used to work only in portrait with home button below. New ‘edit’ type option which allows widget developers to ask users for custom text in the options.

 

Download iWidgets 1.0.1 available in Cydia via the ModMyi Repo for free and supports iOS 6.1.2

 

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Saurik: 18M devices running iOS 6 visited Cydia during evasi0n’s 6 week run

Yesterday, we bid farewell to one of the most infamous jailbreaks of all time: evasi0n. Born on February 4, it lasted nearly 6 weeks before Apple finally disabled it by way of the iOS 6.1.3 software update it issued yesterday.

It certainly served its purpose though. According to Jay Freeman, aka Saurik, Cydia saw more than 18 million unique iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, running iOS 6 (or later), visit during the jailbreak’s 6-week long run…

Forbes Andy Greenberg, speaking with Freeman, reports:

“In the six weeks since evasi0n was released, however, close to 18 million devices have already been jailbroken, according to data from Jay Freeman, the administrator of the Cydia app store for jailbroken devices. He says he’s counted 18.2 million unique devices running iOS 6 visiting Cydia, including 13.8 million iPhones, 3.4 million iPads, and 1.1 million iPod Touches.”

It’s worth noting, though, that it’s quite possible evasi0n isn’t responsible for jailbreaking all 18 million devices. While they have their caveats, both RedSn0w and Sn0wBreeze have the ability to jailbreak older devices on iOS 6.

But even if it only accounted for 17 million, that’d still be impressive. As Greenberg points out, Comex’s popular JailbreakMe 3 hack was only used around 2 million times during its life cycle—remember, though, it only lasted 9 days.

The evasi0n jailbreak lasted for 43 days, and through 2 software updates. Apple finally took it out yesterday, patching multiple exploits used in the hack. Four of the update’s six security fixes were attributed to the evad3rs.

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How to fix Cydia error “wow, you exceeded the number of package names this APT is capable of”

Ever since the evasi0n jailbreak came out, we’ve been inundated with the same support request about a Cydia error that displays the following message: wow, you exceeded the number of package names this APT is capable of. The message also shows a couple more lines of errors but the first one really is the source of the problem.

In this post, we’ll explain what “the number of package names this APT is capable of” means, and most importantly, we’ll provide you with a quick and simple fix for it…

Why does this problem occur?

 

 

According to Saurik himself, Cydia “downloads all of the package listings locally, and then APT consolidates them into a single efficient data structure that can be used even on memory-constrained devices to access the massive wad of packages later.” The problem is that this data structure is only capable of hosting a total of 65,535 packages.

Because the default repositories in Cydia already come with about 40,000 packages, you only have room for an additional 25,000. It means that if you decide to add more sources, especially sources that pirate jailbreak tweaks, you will likely quickly exceed this number and face the mighty error telling you “you exceeded the number of package names this APT is capable of.”

How to fix this error?

The fix is pretty simple, and if you’ve actually read the previous paragraph, you’ve probably already figured it out. In order to fix the excess of package name entries, you need to remove some of the extra repo sources you added in Cydia.

To do so, go to Cydia > Manage > Sources > Edit, then remove a few sources in there. Note that it’s not necessarily a good idea to remove some of the default repositories (BigBoss, Cydia/Telesphoreo, Dev Team, ModMyI, ZodTTD) as they are the ones that actually provide the most bang for your bucks, so to speak.

Apparently this error has been around for a long time, but to be quite frank, I had never heard of it until evasi0n was released.

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30 cydia tweaks for iPhone , iPod touch and iPad

The tweaks chosen are both new and old, popular and unpopular.

 

 

30 is a big number so, I hope that most of you are able to find a tweak that you will enjoy having on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

 

 

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GridLock 2.0 Download Available With Full iOS 6 Support

Yes finally it is here, after a long waiting time, the popular jailbreak tweak GridLock 2.0 now download available for iPhone/iPad and iPod Touch running on iOS 6, for those who haven’t heard about GridLock, it is one of the most awesome and popular jailbreak tweaks that gives you the ability to arrange your apps icons anywhere you want..

 

 

 

As I said above, the tweak allows you to put application icons anywhere they want to on a grid on the home screen (like shown above). Normally when you move an application icon, the next icon in line bounces into the place you just dragged an icon out of. Gridlock prevents this, making it so that you can create interesting home screen patterns to make the application icons less of the focus on the home screen and make more room for other things.

The developer behind the tweak re-wrote the tweak from the ground, right now you can get GridLock 2.0 from the Cydia store via BigBoss repo for $1.99.

In addition to the iOS 6 support, it works beautifully on the iPhone 5. Gridlock is compatible with iOS 3 and later. If you’re interested, Gridlock is now available in Cydia’s BigBoss repository!

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top 10 cydia tweaks for iphone

 

 

 

 

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The smart VersaCover for iPad mini

Personally, I am not fond of folding, origami-sytle cases for iPad. Yet, there are a decent amount of them on the market. You know them. They have a folding back that props your iPad in any number of different angles to increase or decrease the viewing angle. Big deal. Up until now, I have never given an origami case a glance. In fact, sometimes I refuse to review them, but I had a hard time telling Moshi ‘no’ for their VersaCover. Finding myself happily surprised, look past the fold to see if these cases are the right fit for you…

The concept and design

The idea is fairly straight forward. Create a case that both holds the iPad and also elevates it with different viewing angles. Simple, yes, but Moshi threw in a couple of added bonuses. Take for instance the extremely low profile (7.95″ x 5.43″ x .047″ or 20.19 x 13.8 x 1.2 cm). I hate cases solely because they add bulk to a beautifully designed iPad mini but this case protects without added heft. The VersaCover utilizes a rigid but thin cloth cover with a translucent polycarbonate case for the back.

The front cover is smart enabled, waking or sleeping as any other smart cover behaves. There is a nice trick to the back case, however. As the casing is polycarbonate, Moshi inlaid a metal strip on the back, causing the cover to stick when wrapped behind the iPad. Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest difference. When being used or carried, the magnet trick prevents this portfolio case from needing a tab, string or elastic band to stay put.

Origami folding techniques provide three different viewing angles as outlined in the video below. Over the past few weeks, I ran this case through its paces and I can vouch for regularly using two of the three angles. “Landscape” became my standard when using the case for almost anything. I am a Flipboard fanboy and spend most of my iPad time reading. Landscape was just as good for my tech blog reading addiction as “Portrait.” The “Typing” angle is a great angle for, well, typing. I also used it to watch videos when I was cooking in the kitchen. While standing at the counter, using landscape provided a more acute viewing angle.

Personal reaction

With a predetermined, yet unfounded, hatred of folding cases, I am shocked I enjoy using the VersaCover. In fact, I hate using any case for my iOS devices and, after reviewing, I tend to let them pile up or collect dust. However, this marks a solid month, going strong with this particular case. I like it for several reasons, the first of which is minimalism. It is not as razor thin as I prefer, but overall, there is not a terrible amount of added bulk. Second, I like six-sided protection for my device. If I am going to use a case, it needs to cover everything. Third, the little magnet on the back that keeps the cover folded back is my new inanimate friend.

Although I immensely enjoy the case, there is room for improvement, starting with the cover. I like the textured feel of a rigid cloth, however, it can catch stains more easily than other materials. In fact, Moshi includes a brief cleaning tip on the product page. After accidentally spilling yogurt on the cover during breakfast, I am pleased the stain came out easily. Avoiding cloth all together may be the best bet.

Additionally, when using the cover in portrait, pressing in the upper right corner can cause the iPad to tip. Now, you aren’t banging your fingers into the screen during normal usage, but an over zealous tap in the wrong place may cause it to tumble.

Conclusion

Available for $49.95 on Amazon, you really need to appreciate every piece of this construction, otherwise you could find a portfolio style case for less. The VersaCover is three different products aptly built into one. If you are looking for a case that is smart enabled, can prop your iPad at several angles, and offers a rigid back casing, this is your case. If you want only one of any three features, just grab a simpler and cheaper case.

If you already enjoy folding cases, this is a great addition to your arsenal. If you are unsure of taking the origami plunge, this is a good place to start. Me? After using it for a month, I am still toting it around, which is a big thumbs up in my book. Thanks to Moshi for sending over this case for review. It has opened my perspective on folding cases and I have enjoyed my time with the VersaCover.

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