We’ll start with the features and enhancements, and then move on to UI changes.

Lost Mode In Find My iPhone

One of the new introductions in iOS 6 was an improved Lost My iPhone app, which now comes with a Lost Mode. Not only will your device stay logged into Find My iPhone on iOS 6, but also display the charge remaining once it has been located. Furthermore, using the aforementioned Lost Mode, you can remotely track and lock your lost device and display a message on-screen, which will (hopefully) help the finder in returning it to its rightful owner.

Invoking the lost mode requires you to have Find My iPhone installed on your iDevice and iCloud configured to use it. With these requirements satisfied (and a lost device, of course), log into iCloud web interface and start Find My iPhone. Once your device is located (we’ll come back to what happens when it isn’t located in a while), use the panel to put it in Lost Mode. You’ll be asked to enter a passcode if there isn’t one on the iPhone already, after which you may optionally provide a number and message on the screen to indicate to the finder where to contact.

An iPhone/iPad in lost mode will continue to display remaining battery juice as well, alerting you to how much longer will your phone sustain.

In Lost Mode, your phone’s screen will display the relevant message, along with the optional phone number.

It may be noted that if a device isn’t located immediately (because it wasn’t connected to the internet), it will be put in pending mode, whereby the lost mode will kick in as soon as iCloud is able to poll it after restoration of connectivity. Lost Mode may also be initiated from the Find My iPhone app on the device itself, although I fail to understand why someone would choose to do that.

Find My Friends In iOS 6 – Get Alerted When Someone Reaches A Location

Find My Friends itself is nothing new, but the improvement that it has received with iOS 6 surely is. The app was aimed at keeping track of the whereabouts of your loved ones through active tracking, but Apple has now added a passive side to the story, complementing it with notifications. Using the latest version of the app, you can set alerts for people when they arrive at, or leave, a predefined geo-location. Thanks to iOS 6’s geofencing location service, this feature works really well, and if you’d already been using Find My Friends, you’ll find this a welcome addition.

Game Center Challenges

Game Center has been around for a couple of years, but iOS 6 spices it up further with Challenges. Earned an achievement in a game that you’re proud of? Want to show off to your friends who’ve been trailing in the same game? Challenge them from within the iOS 6 Game Center to beat your score and track their progress as they struggle to catch up, or kick the living lights out of you with ease.

You may want to check out this beginner how-to on Challenges for iOS 6 Game Center as well, if you’re having trouble with figuring them out. Took us a while, for sure.

Set Any Song As Alarm Tone On Your iPhone

Personally, I’ve always found my iPhone loud enough to be used as a reliable Alarm clock. One caveat, however, has been the restriction of using only the default tunes for alarm sound. With iOS 6, Apple has lifted this restriction, and now you can set any song from your music library as your iPhone’s alarm sound. So, the next time you want to wake up to your favorite tunes, simply set the track as your alarm sound and let your iPhone say goodbye to those sweet dreams every morning!

iOS 6 Saves Your Personal Dictionary To iCloud

Keyboard shortcuts have been a great introduction in iOS 5 to make typing easier. One problem, however, that I usually came across, was the fact that I’d set up some shortcuts on my iPhone and attempt to use them on my iPad, forgetting that I hadn’t set those up on the latter. With iOS 6, your personal keyboard dictionary is backed up to iCloud and synced across all your devices, meaning that you don’t have to set anything up on both (or more) of them separately. That’s what typing freedom is, really!

iOS 6 Brings A Welcome Addition To The iPhone’s Emoji Keyboard

If I think about it, there’s hardly been anything in iOS 5 that I’ve used as much as the Emoji keyboard. The cute little pictures have always been a fun and interactive way of adding emotion to your texts, not to mention telling entire stories. iOS 6 improves on the native Emoji keyboard, adding more expressions, graphics, symbols, and almost something in every category. Try them out, you’ll fall in love immediately!

Purchase Music & Apps Directly From Within Third Party Offerings

You would’ve noticed this in earlier iterations of iOS if you’d been a fan of purchasing content for your apps – any purchase would direct you to either the App Store or iTunes and force you to leave the one you initiated the purchase from. In iOS 6, you can make purchases directly from within the app. Say, you wanted to purchase a new track for I am T-Pain, now you won’t have to quit it at all to make the transaction. Instead, everything will be handled from within, charging your iTunes account as always. A handy feature, perhaps, but not one that a lot of people would be using.

iOS 6 Safari Allows Uploading Images From The Photos App, Where Required

Had you ever tried to share an image from your iPhone using an online file sharing service? Up until iOS 5, that was an impossibility, because Safari didn’t allow uploading anything through web-based uploads. However, iOS 6’s Safari improvements also include the ability to grab photos or videos from your iDevice’s Photos app and upload them wherever supported. Indeed, we tested with Jumpshare, and it worked like a charm.

Unified iMessage Threads

iOS is now smart enough to combine your iMessage threads in one unified view, irrespective of the address they were sent to. If the same sender had initiated an iMessage conversation through your phone number, and another one through your Apple ID, instead of appearing as two separate threads in the stock Messages app, they’ll be treated as one. A minor change, but definitely convenient, in my opinion.

FaceTime Over Cellular (3G/4G LTE) – Finally!

Yes, it’s finally here! One feature that iOS users had been craving for, and one that was many people’s reason to jailbreak. iOS users can now make and receive FaceTime calls over their mobile data connection, as opposed to previous limitation of WiFi-only. Be advised as you enjoy the freedom, though; FaceTime can (and will) eat up data bandwidth in a hurry! Make sure you employ some sort of data usage monitoring if you don’t have an unlimited plan.

Developer API Changes: Camera Focus & Exposure Control, Reminders & Game Groups

Not all iOS 6 new features deal directly with users; some are there for developers to take advantage of to make even better apps. On that front, Camera API has received a major uplift, allowing better control over stock camera focus and exposure to be embellished to third-party apps. Taking that into account, we can hope to see some big players jumping gun at it pretty soon, brining forth better camera replacements, scanner apps, video recorders and the like. Moreover, video stabilization algorithm has been improved in iOS 6, and we can see the improvements in the HD samples captured on our iPhone 4S.

Likewise, the Reminders API now allows app developers to better interlink their creations with the Stock reminders app, and consequently take advantage of the elusive Siri, since Apple’s personal assistant blends well with the Stock reminders. Game Center has received Game Groups, which allow better multiplayer game management and let you share achievements across iOS and OS X versions of the same game/app.

That’s about it for noteworthy but little-known features of iOS 6. Hereon, we delve into the operating system’s UI changes, which improve (or not) upon whatever meager aesthetics that Apple’s smartphone OS holds.

User Interface Changes In iOS 6

New Sharing Menu

It’s refreshing to see Apple finally letting go of the button-based sharing menu in favor of an 3×3 icon-grid layout. Not only does that house more options than before, but also looks pleasing and better managed. Icons are changed based on available sharing options.

The “New” Ribbon On Freshly-Installed Apps

Any new app installations on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad running iOS 6, will now have a ‘New’ ribbon on its Springboard icon, indicating that this app has never been used. Helpful if you’re in the habit of downloading multiple apps but not put them to work immediately.

I personally have an issue with this, however. The New ribbon appears only on apps that have been downloaded directly on your iDevice. I have a habit of downloading tons of apps through iTunes and then sync them to my iPhone or iPad later. For all those that are transferred this way, there is no ribbon, consequently leaving me clueless as to what I have yet to test and what’s old. It’s not like I’m missing on something that was previously there – it was always this way for me, until iOS 5.1.1 – but if Apple has introduced something that could benefit, it should work in all scenarios, and not just for one aspect of it.

Remodeled iTunes App

iOS 6 also features a revamped iTunes app, getting rid of the one that has been around on the platform since almost forever. The new app adheres more in looks to the new App Store style, and features sliding galleries with decent thumbnails of the offered content. Functionality-wise, there are no noticeable changes.

Revamped iBooks Store

It seems Apple has gone on a spree of revamping interfaces for all its stores, and iBooks store is no exception. Apple’s point of sale for literary masterpieces has also undergone a facelift, trading in the old familiarity for convenience and more data displayed in one screen. We like it, do you?

Extra Options In Reminders

On the face of it, the Reminders app hasn’t changed at all. However, owing to the new developer API, there had to be some enhancements, and indeed, they’re there. The button on top left of the app’s interface lets you access Reminders Lists, which include those shared with you, those that you’ve created, and any that will sync across iCloud. A planner bar is also available at the bottom of this screen, while reminders themselves have now been endowed with geofencing as well, bringing location-based reminders to the mix.

Weather App Loses The Gradient, Looks Better In iOS 6

A purely aesthetic change, but the color tone of the stock Weather app in iOS 6 is more uniform and looks better. See the comparison below – the left image is from the Weather app in iOS 5.1.1, while the right one is from 6.0.

Phone Dialer Is Better – Though Still Lacking Smart Dial

The Phone dialer in iOS 6 has definitely improved on looks, although only the dialer part. All other tabs have remained absolutely unchanged. We’d have loved to see it finally getting Smart Dial/T9, but alas! Perhaps Apple deems that unnecessary, albeit wrongly.

iPhone/iPod Touch Music App UI Overhaul

Another facelift, without any functional changes. The whitish-gray tone is definitely aesthetically pleasing, but that’s as far as it goes. One interesting thing, though. Notice the glow on the volume slider in Now Playing? Rotate the device, and the glow actually shifts position, depicting an actual light-reflecting-from-metal scenario. Cool, huh?

Status Bar & App Header Color

For as long back as I can remember, iOS status bar featured only two colors: a plain black for Springboard and other areas, and a silvery-gray for other areas. In iOS 6, for the most part, the status bar adopts the color of the content header on screen. Check out the screenshots below.

Notice how the Status Bar has changed its color tone to blue and gray, to blend well with the content header? The traditional blacks are still there, but this certainly gives more uniformity to the content on display than previous versions. This chromatic scheme, however, does not work with all applications, so don’t grill us if you find the old blacks still hanging around somewhere in the OS.

This concludes our compilation of lesser-known but noteworthy features in iOS 6, as well as all the prominent interface changes that you may encounter. Do you think we missed anything? Stumbled across something that slipped under our radar? Drop us a comment below and let us know.

This article is a part of our guide to new features in iOS 6, which covers the following topics:

• Panorama Camera Mode
  
• Facebook Integration
• Shared Photo Streams
• Brand New Maps App
• Passbook
• New Native iPad Clock App
• Phone App Improvements & Do Not Disturb
• Privacy Control
• Siri Improvements
• Remodeled App Store
• Safari Improvements
  
• Mail App Improvements & VIP Inbox
• New Accessibility Features
• List Of Other Lesser Known Features & UI Changes (Currently viewing)

Read iOS 6: Lesser Known Features & UI Changes by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Other than retaining all its usual helpful self, Siri has become more aware of sports and movies, and can pull fixtures, facts, results and ratings from various online sources, should you ask her to do so. Then, she can find places to hang and dine out near your location, and can even make reservations on your behalf. Along side the new Facebook integration, you can also tell Siri to Tweet or update your Facebook status. There’s better language support, and the virtual assistant can even read out your notifications for you, should you have any. All of this comes with a better, more natural speech recognition engine that can even decipher rather-obscure queries and fetch the right results.

Siri As A Movie Junkie & Your Personal Concierge

So you’re into movies, eh? Well, who isn’t! Your personal assistant on the new iOS devices can help you in a lot of ways when it comes to finding new flicks to watch, or check out the cast in the latest blockbuster, or even discover show timings in theatres near you. Siri uses the Rotten Tomatoes database to pull rating and star data, and your location for show timings. Then, you can ask her to show all movies from, say, Twentieth Century Fox, or ask things like “who directed The Prestige?”, and she’ll bring you the relevant information. All answers are presented in neat cards with as much information as possible contained within.

Using Siri, you can now also not only find good places to eat out near your current location, but also make reservations and read reviews, thanks to its integration with Yelp and Open Table. Pricing, location and directions can all be found through your virtual assistant, and should you find a place to your liking – perhaps that French cuisine down the block – Siri will invoke Open Table to make reservations for you on the go.

Siri Tries Out For Sports – And She Fares Well

It won’t have been the first time Apple “borrowed” innovation from Cydia and the jailbreak community (Notification Center, anyone?), and iOS 6 comes as no exception. At AddictiveTips, we’ve even covered a compilation of best Siri tweaks and add-ons a while back. A lot of tweaks that we covered endowed Siri with a fairly good knowhow of several sports, and now, Apple has brought that to its personal virtual assistant natively. You can ask Siri for schedules, fixtures, player bios and even records. The list of covered games is rather limited, including only basketball, football, baseball, soccer and hockey, but within these, you can be assured of pretty thorough coverage.

Siri Can Read Notifications & Post Updates To Facebook & Twitter

The latter being an idea we already saw featuring in a few Cydia tweaks, Siri can now also read out loud your notifications (should you have any), and tweet and post on your Facebook wall on your behalf. In lock screen mode, simply invoke her by long-pressing the Home button, and say something like “read my notifications”, and your assistant will gladly oblige. Should you have any unread messages, for instance, she will first call out the total count, then read the sender’s name, along with the message itself. Likewise, you can also check for unread emails through a simply query, although she didn’t read those out for me.

Alongside Facebook integration, Siri can now also Tweet and post Facebook updates on your behalf. The command “tweet” followed by any statement will be sent through your configured Twitter account. Same goes for Facebook, where Siri understands statements like “Post to Facebook” or “Write on my wall” followed by the message itself. It may be noted that for Twitter, you may also just Tweet your location, whereas I found that missing for Facebook.

iOS 6 Siri Is Multilingual – In 15 Languages – And International

When it was introduced with iPhone 4S, Siri had grasp of a few different languages and accents, including English (U.S., U.K., and Australian), French, German and Japanese. The latest iteration of iOS raises the bar to 15 different locales, inclusive of:

• English & Spanish (U.S.)
• English (U.K.)
• English (Australian)
• French
• German
• Japanese
• English & Canadian French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Italian, Swiss French & Swiss German
• Korean
• Mandarin
• Cantonese

The increased language support makes sense, too, since now, specific Siri services like finding hotels, restaurants near your location etc, will be available worldwide, and no longer restricted to the States only.

This pretty much sums up all the major changes and enhancements that iOS 6 brings to Siri, particularly those that might (and will) impact how people use and interact with their personal assistant. There have been other subtle changes, like the ability to open apps by speaking their names, preceded by “launch” or “play”, and then the famed Eyes Free project, where Apple will partner with various car manufacturers to make invoking Siri while driving a completely hands-free experience, delivering both comfort and reliability. Of course, how that turns out, only time will tell, but it is nevertheless an intriguing concept.

Siri had already been the hype with iPhone 4S, and with the new iPhone 5, which boasts almost as much new goodies as the previous one did, it is going to see a lot more (and improved) usage. Apple appears to have put considerable and careful thought in how people might be utilizing the virtual assistant on their phones, and despite the fact that some of the innovations are hugely borrowed from the jailbreak community, Siri has taken a leap towards improved usefulness, and is certain to find more fans now than before.

This guide is a part of our guide to new features in iOS 6, which covers the following topics:

• Panorama Camera Mode
  
• Facebook Integration
• Shared Photo Streams
• Brand New Maps App
• Passbook
• New Native iPad Clock App
• Phone App Improvements & Do Not Disturb
• Privacy Control
• Siri Improvements (Currently viewing)
• Remodeled App Store
• Safari Improvements
  
• Mail App Improvements & VIP Inbox
• New Accessibility Features
• List Of Other Lesser Known Features & UI Changes

Read A Detailed Walkthrough Of New Siri Commands & Functions In iOS 6 by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

If you’ve been using iOS 5, you might already have a fair idea of what level of implementation Facebook would’ve had, or at least what to expect, seeing as how iOS 5 brought the same with Twitter. Now, in iOS 6, just scroll down the Settings app, and you’ll see Facebook next to the Twitter option. Enter your credentials and let them verify, after which you’ll be asked to install the official Facebook app for iPhone and iPad (optional). However, it is also at this point where you’ll notice the first major difference from how Twitter mashes with the OS. Since Facebook offers generally more than what Twitter has, not only will it sync your contacts data (and update existing matches with their profile pictures, based on phone numbers and email addresses), but will also sync calendars (great for events and birthday reminders), and let apps access your Facebook account with ease.

On the contacts front, your iOS 6 iDevice will pull all your friends from your Facebook account and add them to your phone’s contacts app. The mechanism is smart enough to merge duplicates and present them in a unified interface, at the bottom of which the linking is shown clearly. For those of your friends who’ve provided their email addresses or phone numbers to Facebook, iOS 6 will match them against your local phonebook and update the pictures for any relevant matches. One downer, however, is that Facebook contacts cannot be distinguished from one another in the standard contacts list, and you need to tap each to figure out whether it comes from Facebook or some other source.

Notice that a Facebook-only contact is marked by a tiny Facebook logo on the bottom-left of the contact’s picture. For others, unified into is presented, where you can scroll down the page to see which contacts have been linked, change the linking or establish one yourself.

Next, we look at how Facebook fares with Calendars app on your iPhone. If you’ve granted permission for Calendar access under Facebook panel in Settings, it will automatically pull all your events and upcoming birthdays from your Facebook profile and add them to the stock Calendars app. Events include all the information that you’d expect on Facebook – when, where, who, why – and will get populated as more users respond. Please note that invitations are not shown separately, despite having their own tab in iOS calendar. Even the events that you’ve been invited to, will be added to your calendar, and only should you decline them will they get removed.

It was quite obvious that Facebook will find a place in the newly-redesigned sharing menu in iOS 6, and almost everywhere through the OS, we see the Facebook button. You can share images and videos from the stock Photos app, and links from Safari or other supporting applications. Like a game on the App Store and want to challenge your friends? Post it to Facebook without ever needing to leave the original app!

While you get the option to add location with everything you post to Facebook through iOS 6, and change the visibility of the post, you can also, natively, choose which album the photo should go to when sharing something from the Photos app. This is a welcome change from having all images go into Mobile Uploads, without any control over the function itself. Albums can be changed by simply tapping the Album name displayed on the sharing stack, and selecting your preferred one.

You also get Game Center integration for better competition against people you already know, as opposed to general, public challenges and new friends.

All of this is pretty good, but what about simple status updates? What if, the thing that you want to share is nothing more than a thought, without a picture or link to go with it? iOS 6 doesn’t ignore that, either, so when you pull down the notification center, you’ll see two buttons – Tap to Tweet and Tap to Post – both of which are pretty evident by their respective logos. Hit the post button, and you can simply add your status update for all your Facebook network to read right from your iOS device!

Having played around with iOS 6’s Facebook integration for a few days, I safely believe that Apple has done it really well. It caters to almost all the aspects of the social network that you’d expect it to, and the contact and calendar sync is truly remarkable – not the concept, mind you, but how it’s been implemented. Add to the fact that Photo sharing is super-convenient, and posting links and directions simpler than before, and you’ll soon find yourself using this nicety offered by iOS 6 more and more every day, especially if you are a Facebook-junkie. Let us know what you think.

This guide is a part of our guide to new features in iOS 6, which covers the following topics:

• Panorama Camera Mode
  
• Facebook Integration (Currently viewing)
• Shared Photo Streams
• Brand New Maps App
• Passbook
• New Native iPad Clock App
• Phone App Improvements & Do Not Disturb
• Privacy Control
• Siri Improvements
• Remodeled App Store
• Safari Improvements
  
• Mail App Improvements & VIP Inbox
• New Accessibility Features
• List Of Other Lesser Known Features & UI Changes

Read Guide To iOS 6 Facebook Integration & Contact Sync by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Before we begin, let me clarify that it’s not the first 9GAG client to surface on the iTunes App Store, although it most certainly is the one and only official one. There have been pretty capable alternatives available, and if worse came to worst, the mobile version of 9gag.com itself is pretty neat, too. In fact, even with the official client, the mobile version still holds some benefits, although loses in some areas. However, one does not simply make a one paragraph review of something as huge and viral as 9GAG, and hence, we move on.

The first launch of the 9GAG app brings a panel with alternating images from various “cute” posts, with the option to “Try” the application there and then, or log in with your 9GAG (or Facebook) account. The status bar shows the caching activity of the app, where it downloads 10 posts initially for viewing, and then continues to fetch more as you continue browsing. A graphical instruction set for the app’s controls is also presented, although they’re so few that it’s a no brainer to figure them out (and something that’s somewhat a shortcoming in the app, but we’ll come to those later).

In a nutshell, for every post on 9GAG, you get a share button, up and down vote options, and skip the post. Then, you may swipe left for the next post, or skip the current one (hey, wasn’t that the same thing that the skip button was supposed to do? 9gag Genius!), or swipe right to go back up to one previous post only. Longer posts can be scrolled down to view in full, and the app supports double-tap zoom as well.

Within the sharing menu lay the options to save the photo, copy its link, share it over Facebook, Twitter, via Email or through SMS. Now comes another interesting part. See the settings screenshot below? You would be hard pressed to find it, unless you choose to sign up or sign in straight away. The annoying blue button on posts asking you to sign up serves the dual purpose of hiding the Settings cog wheel, and gives way to the latter only when you’ve either provided the app your 9GAG credentials, or logged in through your Facebook account. (I see what you did there, 9gag!)

Within settings, you can toggle Smart Download (fetches post in advance as you browse, as opposed to caching each photo as it is landed on), High Resolution Images and Update on Wi-Fi only, which would be helpful in saving cellular data costs if you’re on a restricted plan. You may also turn off Safe Mode, which is enabled by default, to allow NSFW content.

While that’s all 9GAG for iOS has to offer, feature-wise, the app leaves a lot to be craved for. There’s too much missing to count the official app any threat to the third-party solutions. There’s no way to segregate Hot, Trending or Voting, and you cannot comment on posts either (heck, you cannot even view them!). Then, not being able to go back more than one post is a deal breaker. Furthermore, I was unable to fathom the order in which the posts appear. For instance, I saw one post that was fairly new, and the next swipe brought me to one that was at least 3 days old. It was purely haphazard, and if someone has managed to identify a pattern, we’d love to know. Finally, a lot of people have complained of continuous crashes, although my experience was smooth in that regard.

To give a verdict, the list of missing features is, well, too damn high for now. Judging by the official 9GAG client’s smooth operation, I truly hope that the developers will consider improving the app beyond its current stature, and include at least the most important missing bits, like comment support, hot/trending segregation, and whatever else they can squeeze in. For now, while it may be good for browsing posts of if you just want to play around with the official iPhone app for 9GAG, but you’d be better off with third-party solutions for a truly ‘gagging’ experience. That’s my verdict, and trust me, I’m a professional!

Oh, and before we part ways, 9GAG is an iPhone-optimized app (sorry iPad) that’s free, which is why I was hard pressed to find a way to squeeze in “shut up and take my money”.

Download 9GAG For iPhone, iPod touch

Update: Since this app was first covered, it has undergone an interface overhaul and quiet a few improvements. The app is now available for Android and the iOS version now allows you to upload photos to 9GAG.

Read Official 9GAG App For iPhone Available, Disappoints For Most Part by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

It needs to be clarified that NetMeter Widget is not a standalone notification center widget, and will automatically grab the NetMeter app if you don’t have it already. Consequently, you will also get the NetMeter icon on your iPhone’s springboard. The widget’s entire configuration is performed through this app, and you can also view the statistics locally within it. By default, NetMeter shows GPRS/3G usage for the day, week, month and total (since the app was installed), as well as the same stats for Wi-Fi data usage. More elements, like Personal Hotspot usage, total usage for the Day, Week, Month etc, can also be enabled from Settings under Layout Arrangement. You may also define the first day of billing cycle and set usage limits for GPRS and WiFi.

Since the real usefulness of this Cydia add-on comes from its notification center widget, let’s take a closer look at that, too. First, you’ll have to enable the widget manually, as with most notification center items. To do that, head over to Settings app, tap Notifications and drag the NetMeter item to the above panel for activation. The widget represents whatever you have set in the NetMeter app, and does not have a separate settings section of its own. It shows the current network speeds for both WiFI and GPRS/3G, along with total usage and any limits that you may have set. On that note, the widget cannot be customized, as in, you cannot make it show the total usage for, say, the day, instead of lifetime stats. Furthermore, additions aren’t possible, either, as it will always show these two stats and never go for Personal Hotspot usage.

Both NetMeter app and the accompanying widget are available for free in the BigBoss repository, and work fine with any jailbroken iOS devices. While they may not be very comprehensive or feature-laden, they still provide a quick way to assess your remaining traffic out of whatever precious mobile data limits your carrier has imposed. Being a free tweak, we believe it’s worth a shot for anyone who wants to keep tabs on how much wireless bandwidth is being eaten by their iDevices.

Read NetMeter: Monitor Your iPhone’s Data Usage From Notification Center by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Before you go into a joyous frenzy, it may be pointed out that Metroon is not a free theme, and fetches for $1.50 in Cydia (you can look in up in the default repositories, no special additions needed). The theme package comes complete with a Metro Start Screen sporting actual live tiles, a Charms bar, an All Apps menu, Windows 8-style slide-up-to-unlock lock screen (with notifications), and much more. Although not an exact replica of Windows, Metroon keeps things as close to the original as possible, and might bring even more in future updates.

Since the theme requires Dreamboard, it will automatically be fetched along with the Metroon package if you don’t have the former already. Once installed, simply launch Dreamboard on your iPhone or iPod touch and select the Metroon theme. Instantaneously, your device will get transformed into a 3.5” replica of Windows 8, and you’ll be greeted with the Start Screen.

A few tiles are already pinned to the Metro Start Screen, including those for Calendar, Internet Explorer (launches Safari), Desktop (brings back the traditional iOS Springboard, much like the Desktop app in Windows 8), Messaging, Mail, People (launches Contacts), Phone etc. Some of these tiles are live ones, displaying real-time notifications and previews of incoming messages, calendar appointments etc (see screenshot above), and can be switched on or off individually. Tiles may be also be resized and relocated using the context menus for each. It may be noted that, interestingly, tapping and holding a tile yields no effect, and to access the options for that tile, you have to swipe down on it (took me a while to figure that one out). You can Unpin the tile from Start, make it Smaller or Larger, turn Live feature on or off (if the said tile supports it), or move it Up or Down for repositioning.

You may also have noticed above that iOS’ icon badges are replaced with a numeric indicator on the tile itself, exactly what you’ll expect in Windows 8.

The top of the Start Screen displays a Start button, tapping which will take you to All Apps menu, listing every app that is found on your device, and a stock user avatar along side a changeable username. Any app can be pinned to the Start Screen from All Apps menu, where the method for selection still remains a downward swipe on the app’s name. To my disappointment, Metroon doesn’t support batch selection, and you’ll have to pin items one by one.

We mentioned the availability of the Charms bar, remember? It, too, is accessed exactly how the bar behaves in Windows 8. Just swipe sideways from the right edge of your iPhone’s screen, and the bar will slide in. As of now, the options contained within include Search (triggers Spotlight), Start and Settings. The Start toggle is useful to jump back to Start Screen of Metroon if you’ve initiated the Desktop app to get traditional Springboard, and want to go back to the Metro interface.

The final element is a Windows 8 style lockscreen, which not only proudly displays your current wallpaper, but also the time and date, unread email and messages count, and any other badge notifications (as is the case with three available App Store updates in the screenshot below). In the lockscreen mode, iOS’ traditional notification mechanism is replaced with a Windows Phone-like status bar one, and complements the theme really well. We, however, would’ve liked a more universal implementation of this. The lockscreen will also show you any upcoming calendar appointments, making it infinitely more useful than iOS’ stock offering.

While Metroon left us impressed for the most part, there’s still a lot of room for improvement. For instance, I’d like to see the ability to move tiles around on the Start Screen with more ease and in batches, rather than only one app and one step at a time. Then, the Charms bar can be expanded to include a few quick toggles, too. The avatar on Start Screen might become more catchy if it could’ve been replaced with, say, your own pic from the device’s Camera Roll, and some owner info on the lockscreen wouldn’t’ have hurt, either. Finally, there’s this annoying bug with Metroon that randomly renders the screen completely black when you press home to return to the Start panel.

Overall, Metroon is one of the most practical and functional Dreamboard themes that I have seen to date. Windows 8 may have its fair share (in fact, more than fair) of flaws, but one has to admit, it’s remarkably useful on a touch-based mobile interface, and Metroon brings that to life on any jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch (the theme isn’t iPad optimized). The price tag may not be very welcoming for all users, but rest assured that those $1.50 are going to bring you something truly fresh and impressive.

Read Metroon Brings A Working Windows 8 Experience To iPhone by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Developed by UnlimApps, QuickIM is available for free in the BigBoss repo of Cydia. Since it’s a proper app and not merely a tweak, an icon to the Springboard of your jailbroken iDevice will be added. The app itself is currently in beta and more of a work-in-progress, although whatever is offered as of now works without hiccups (setting aside a few minor annoyances here and there). Being a Cydia app, QuickIM is also considerably lighter than the likes of BeejiveIM, IM+, Verbs IM, or even the official Facebook Messenger.

When you launch QuickIM, a three-tabbed interface greets you, divided into Buddy List, Conversations and Accounts. Since it’s the first launch, all the three tabs will be empty, so you should head over to the Accounts window and configure your first IM service. Tapping the plus sign at the top will let you choose the service (Facebook or Google Talk), after which you’ll need to enter your credentials and give a name to the account for easy identification. The developers promise support for more chat protocols in future updates of the app.

Once a chat service has been added, it will show up under the Accounts panel. Notice the toggle next to any account’s name? None of your configurations will be active by default, and you will have to manually switch them on to let the app establish connection. It was also here that I encountered my first bug – QuickIM does not seem to agree with Google Apps accounts, and every attempt to set one up resulted in Mobile Substrate crashing, sending my iPhone into Safe Mode. The developers may want to look into that.

Once an account has been connected, the buddy list will get populated with contacts under three distinct divisions: Available, Away and Offline. QuickIM does not offer any settings menu or configuration panel whatsoever.

To initiate a chat, simply tap the contact’s name to get the compose window. Message delivery was instantaneous, and I have no complaints regarding the core functionality of the app. You may notice from the screenshot above, that Facebook contacts are differentiated in the Buddy List from Gmail ones by a tiny Facebook logo over the contact’s picture. Beyond that, I found no way to determine which contact belonged to what service.

All your active chats are listed under Conversations to make it easier picking up any discussion from where it was left off.

One might wonder at this point, despite all this being great, what makes QuickIM special? Why should one use it? To answer that, let’s understand how the quick reply feature works. Traditionally, when using an IM app, you’ll receive a message and the app will notify you (most likely in the form of a banner alert if you’re using iOS 5), tapping which will take you to the respective app. You’ll reply to the message, quit the app and go back to whatever you were doing. This can either be done by hitting the Home button to come back to Springboard and re-launching the previous app, or using the App Switcher (or any multitasking tweak) to go back. QuickIM, essentially, saves that trouble by making the jump back to the old app automatically.

Consider this: you were playing a game when QuickIM notified you of a new Google Talk message. You tap the banner, and the conversation pops up right in front of you (no re-sync required, like in Facebook Messenger). Key in your reply, but instead of hitting the Send button, tap return (bottom right corner). Your message will get sent, and instead of staying within QuickIM, you’ll immediately jump back to whatever game you came from. Should you want to continue chatting, you can use the Send button instead of return, and you will remain within the chat client.

In my opinion, you can get the most out of QuickIM if you use it in tandem with an activator gesture, since the app allows you to immediately and quickly send a chat message to any configurable service. However, even if you don’t bother with that, the app’s usefulness stays in tact, thanks to it’s quick reply feature and resource-friendly operation. The future versions aim to make it much better, as the developer promises adding support for more services, sending files, opening links from within chat – pretty much everything that popular IM apps do nowadays. At the same time, I’d recommend they look into the few bugs that are there, too, and especially address the Google Apps accounts issue.

As stated earlier, QuickIM is available free in BigBoss repository, and is compatible with iOS 5. Testing was carried out on iPhone 4S running jailbroken iOS 5.1.1.

Read QuickIM For iPhone: Google Talk & Facebook Chat Client With Quick Reply by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The method is dead simple, and requires you to have the IPSW for the latest firmware (basically any would do, but we recommend latest) of your iDevice, along with redsn0w for your respective platform (Mac or Windows). redsn0w 0.9.14b2 will essentially create a modified IPSW out of this, which will put your iDevice in DFU mode at the end of restore (standard iTunes method) so it can be jailbroken with the tool of your choice.

First, download the correct IPSW for your device. You’ll have to search for it over the internet, so Google is your best friend here. Next, download redsn0w 0.9.14b2 for Windows or Mac OS X, unzip the archive and launch the utility (under Administrator mode in Windows).

In redsn0w, hit the Extras button, and go to Even more. Here, click the DFU IPSW button.

A prompt will inform you of the purpose for creating such an IPSW, after which you’ll be required to navigate to the stock IPSW that you downloaded prior to starting the process.

redsn0w 0.9.14b2 will now unpack the firmware, and made the required modifications. A progress bar will keep you apprised of the changes that are taking place.

Once done, the modified IPSW will be saved in the location of the original one on your hard drive with the prefix “ENTER_DFU_”. Connect your iPhone with your PC/Mac, and perform a Shift + Restore (Option + Restore in OS X) with this modified IPSW. iTunes will restore your iDevice, at the end of which it will be in DFU mode, ready to be used with redsn0w or any other jailbreak tool of your choice.

It may be noted that there will no indication of the device being in DFU mode, as it is already only signified by a black screen. The only verification you can take is from iTunes saying it detected an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in Recovery mode.

So, there you go. Instead of manually unzipping and playing around with an IPSW, you can now use redsn0w to automatically and easily achieve DFU mode for jailbreaking. While exceptionally useful for people with broken hardware buttons, this method may also find popularity with those that find it tedious to keep holding Power or Home buttons on their iDevice.

[via Dev-Team Blog]

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Since, for the most part, the problem lies with the banners interrupting whatever the ongoing activity was, CoverMeNot tackles the problem exactly where it occurs. The tweak essentially increases the height of the iPhone’s status bar to two rows instead of one, but not always. This height jump happens only when a notification is received. Hence, whenever a banner alert is to be displayed, the tweak increases the height of the status bar so that the banner remains contained within, and doesn’t cover up the app. Consequently, you may also say that the tweak ‘pushes down’ the currently active app to make room for the notification, whichever way you prefer.

CoverMeNot (quite aptly named, I must say) is available in the ModMyi repository of Cydia, and can be downloaded for free. It doesn’t come with any settings or springboard icons, and takes effect right away after installation. Despite being highly useful for almost all jailbreak users, I felt it can use a cosmetic upgrade. For one, when the notification is displayed in the larger status bar, one can clearly see redundant black space on top of the banner, which might be due to some misaligned pixels. For another, when the banner vanishes out, you can see (for a split second) the persistent blue status bar that appears for background activities like personal hotspot. This, again, in my opinion, is something that speaks aesthetic polish, and the developer might want to iron out these small wrinkles to make CoverMeNot all the more appealing.

Read Prevent iPhone Banner Notifications From Obscuring The App In Use by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

Tiled comes from MotionOne labs, the same team behind the much-revered AfterFocus for iPhone and Android. It’s basically a frame-based collage maker, and that’s surely the impression you’re going to get when you launch it for the first time. Past the splash screen, Tiled greets you with a three-tabbed screen boasting a long list of various templates, alongside any favorites that you may have created or marked. If you’ve ever used a Windows Phone device, you’ll immediately notice the stark similarity between the interface elements of Tiled and Microsoft’s smartphone operating system. A Settings tab adorns the top of the interface, while the lower rim help, pin and start (even the term “pin” is more common in WP7, rather than iOS).

To begin, you may either pick a layout from the existing templates (there are numerous, just continue sliding right), or create one of your own, the option for which can be found under the favorites tab. In here, you’ll find all your creations, as well as those layouts that you’ve “pinned” from the preexisting templates. Hit the new button in the bottom bar, select a base format from the offered choices and customize it to your liking by merging or splitting cells. It may a little getting used to, but works smoothly.

With the layout finalized, hit start and you’re ready to begin creating your masterpiece. The bottom bar will now contain four distinct tiles, namely import, adjust, write and frame, out of which only the last one will be active, and let you modify the frame’s own traits, such a divider thickness, shape of edges, color etc. To activate the rest of the options, select a tile from your frame.

First up is the import tab, which basically defines the source of that tile’s contents. Any tile in the app can hold a picture (freshly snapped or imported from album), have a solid background color, or display a pattern, where you have a multitude of choices to pick from. Along with all that, you may also apply certain “effects” to the whole tile, which will modify all elements contained within.

Next to that is the adjust tab. where populated options depend on the source material in the selected tile. For instance, if you’d chosen to import a picture in the tile in question, the options would be something like flip, rotate, zoom etc, as well as a handful of filters to change the look and feel of the image. However, should you have chosen a color, you can adjust the gradient, apply it to all other tiles and shift the density etc. Hence, adjustments are context-sensitive.

Finally, we have the write tab, which, as the name well-implies, is used for adding text to the collage. The configurable parameters here are truly impressive. You may select a text effect, change its color, resize it, choose fonts and styling and more. In addition, you may also insert pictograms rather than plain text, for which Tiled sports a pretty decent collection.

Once you’re done with your creation, go back to the main interface and hit the outward-pointing arrow to save your collage, email it, or share over Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, the last of which will require you to have Instagram app installed on your iPhone. You can also save the current frame you’re working with as favorite using the “pin” button (will save only the frame and not the photos within). It is also here that you can access settings for TIled, where the adjustable parameters include final image’s size (in pixels), both for saving and uploading, auto-saving of snapped images to camera roll, and changing the app’s own skin/theme from four available options.

So that’s about it. Tiled is a decent app, and although not as feature-rich as, say, Frame Artist PRO, still packs enough punch to satiate most casual users. It’s stable and smooth operating, and in all honesty, the only complaint that I have is the rather-small sizes in which the app allows you to save the output. I mean, seriously, 1600 pixels is way too low, considering the power of newer iOS devices. That said, I would recommend Tiled to anyone who’s looking for a decent on-the-go collage maker for their iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

Tiled is a universal app costing $0.99 in iTunes App Store, and can be downloaded at the link below.

Download Tiled For iPhone, iPod touch & iPad

Read Tiled For iPhone & iPad: Powerful Collage Maker With A Metro-Style UI by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

InstaTalks doesn’t require a separate registration of its own, and you may sign in with your Instagram credentials. The app will require authorization to access your Instagram data, after which it’s pretty much smooth and conventional. On the permissions front, InstaTalks will send you push notifications and require access to location services to find users in your vicinity.

The interface of the app is divided into four main tabs, at the lower edge of the screen. Logging in for the first time will land you at the popular tab, which will list the most active users of the service. It’s worth noting at this point that you cannot communicate with anyone who’s not following you (unless you acquire super powers, but we’ll get to those later). Tapping any contact will open the new chat window, which will also let you see the recipient’s current availability (offline or online).

The next tab comprises a list of all the Instagram users that you follow. Again, you can only chat with those that a) use InstaTalks, and b) are following you back. Starting a new chat is really easy. All you need to do is tap a contact’s name, input your message and send away. A camera button next to the text field lets you send photos from your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad’s camera roll as well. The list can be filtered on the basis of all contacts, recent interactions and favorites, using the three buttons on top.

In the chat window itself, the star at top right lets you quickly mark the contact as favorite, while the grid next to it will pull thumbnails of all photos shared by that particular user on Instagram. You can, however, not view any photo in full using InstaTalks, and the app will direct you to Instagram if you have it installed on your iDevice.

The third tab lists your profile, which will be useful if someone were to search for you over the app’s network, while the final one boasts settings, where you can configure parameters like whether to show both followers or following, either of them, or none. Since the app supports push notifications, you may also toggle those on or off. It is also in settings that you are introduced to Super Powers (mentioned earlier), which are essentially in-app purchases that grant you features like chatting with anyone, irrespective of whether they follow you on Instagram or not, or filter search results with only those users that are currently online. Super Powers come in packs, offered in 1 month for $0.99, 3 months for $4.99, 6 months for $7.99 and Lifetime for $11.99. Quite honestly, the pricing model feels ridiculous to me, since you’re be saving more if you continue to opt for the $1/month option. However, there’s a catch – the developer states the availability of the 1 month Super Power pack to be limited, and it might not last that long for you to take any real advantage of it anyway. Also, irrespective of what plan you choose, they are priced rather steep for what they offer, but hey, that’s just my take.

InstaTalks takes a different approach towards Instagram, and brings something entirely new to the table. The app is available for free on iTunes App Store, and is iPhone/iPod touch optimized only. Whether you’ll find any use for it or not, you can only determine after giving it a try. On our part, we like the concept.

Download InstaTalks For iPhone & iPod touch

Update: InstaTalks is now available in the Google Play Store, too. You can download the app on your Android device via the link provided below.

Download InstaTalks For Android

Read InstaTalks Is A Chat Client For Instagram Users [Android, iOS] by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter

The tweak itself feels like a packaging of Jon Abrams JavaScript into a Cydia debian. It, however, differs in the fact that it makes use of Ryan Petrich’s Action Menu. In case you are unaware, Action Menu is the pop up that you get when you, say, select a text or double-tap a word, and contains options like Copy, Paste, Select All etc. Action Menu enhances this default set, and adds a few quite useful menus of its own, along with providing a platform for other tweaks like this one.

Chrome for Action Menu is available in the BigBoss repository of Cydia, and can be downloaded for free. In terms of dependencies, since it requires Action Menu to work properly, the tweak will automatically grab the required package if not already available on your system. Upon installation, the tweak does not add any Settings app menu of its own, nor does it sport a Springboard icon. What it will do, however, is add a “Chrome” toggle to Action Menu’s settings in Extensions, and toggling that on will enable the Chrome item in action menu throughout the device.

Once the tweak is ON, select any link in Mobile Safari, and the action menu that pops up will have a Chrome option, tapping which will launch the target URL in Chrome instead of navigating to that in iOS Safari. Unlike the JavaScript bookmark hack, this tweak won’t let you send any current URL to Chrome for iPhone with a single tap, but you can utilize it wherever action menu can be invoked, so selecting the link from URL bar should do the trick for that, too.

The tweak is certainly a useful addition to all the Chrome improvements available in Cydia, and the fact that it makes it easy to do something that would otherwise require some manual effort, makes it all the more useful.

Read Open Any URL In Chrome For iPhone & iPad Through iOS Action Menu by Aatif Khan on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter