Hamza Khalid

Handles Windows Phone, iOS and Cydia. A big WP7 fan, who just loves writing about anything and everything. Google+

Discretely Shoot Videos & Photos On iOS Without Launching Any App

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Although a bit controversial, methods to capture photos secretly have always been in high demand. In the past, movies depicted agents and spies using concealed cameras in things like shoes, walking sticks, pens and even coat buttons. Though these days, technology has taken a more practical turn. In the past, we have covered Cydia tweaks like SlyCam for iOS that lets you discretely shoot photos via the Notification Center. An even better option is QuickShoot - the amazing tweak that captures photos every time you double-tap the icon of the stock Camera app. Both these solutions are meant to let you get snap pictures only, and aren't capable of shooting videos. QuickShoot has recently received an update, which brings exactly this capability to the tweak. Not only does QuickShoot Pro capture videos, but you can also control basic camera settings right from your SpringBoard now. Read More

LookAway Player: iOS YouTube App With Galaxy S4′s Smart Pause Feature

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Even if you aren’t a big fan of Android, there are a few features of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 that you just have to admire. I am not just talking about all the technical details like its 1080p display or the Exynos 5 Octa 5410 processor, but the little things like Smart Pause and Drama Shot. After all, everyone who isn't a geek cares more about these novelty features, rather than the amount of RAM their phone packs. For those of you who aren't familiar with Smart Pause, it is a Galaxy S4 feature that makes the device track the user’s face and eye movement to automatically pause videos whenever their attention gets diverted from the screen. The S4 hasn't even arrived in the market yet, and iOS already has an app that comes with a perfect implementation of Smart Pause, albeit with a limited scope. Meet the YouTube client, LookAway Player. Read More

Vtalkie Is A Push-To-Capture Video Messaging App For iPhone

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Almost every messenger available on iOS lets users share media files. You can send photos, documents, videos and even doodles to your friends via messenger apps from your iPhone. Vtalkie might appear to be just another messenger for iOS, but actually there is something really unique about it. The app lets you share videos with your friends, but it treats this transfer as a walkie talkie exchange. Instead of recorded voice messages, you get to record short video clips that are then sent to your friends straight away. Apart from this primary feature, the app can also be used to discover people near your current location, and comes with a nice collection of animated emoticons. Read More

Glass Booth Offers Tons Of Awesome Glass Photo Effects On iPhone

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As you can probably gauge from our list of best iOS photo editors, most of the popular apps of this genre offer a variety of image effects and editing options. This doesn't mean, however, that there isn’t any room in the market for photo editing apps that focus on just one genre of filters. The presence of apps like Vintique clearly demonstrate that people still like to give single-purpose apps a try every once in a while. Glass Booth is not the kind of app that will replace the photo editor you are currently using on your iPhone, but it will certainly lure you to keep coming back to it frequently. The filters offered by the app are built around the same theme - they are meant to give the impression that you are looking at your photos through glass. This might sound a bit too specific, but in fact there are plenty of customization options and variety of effects available to keep users interested for a long time. Read More

A Look At Chrome For iOS’ Fullscreen, PDF To Drive & Print Features

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The iOS app of Google Chrome has gone through a few changes since its release last summer, but the app hasn't received any major updates yet. The previous update gained more popularity for the crashing issue it introduced in jailbroken devices, rather than the few new features it brought. The latest update, however, is a lot more significant. The app now has a full screen mode, lets you convert any webpage to a PDF, and enables you to print pages via AirPrint or Google Cloud Print right from within Chrome. This brings Chrome almost at par with Mobile Safari, as other than the ‘Reader’ mode, you can now do everything with Chrome that can be accomplished in Safari, and then some. Read More

Double Tap iPhone Music App Icon To Get Quick Playback Controls

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The notion of iOS widgets for areas other than the Notification Center is still relatively new, and you have to go through a considerable amount of effort to configure widgets for the lock screen or SpringBoard. When you have spent a lot of time installing a widget, you aren’t likely to remove it temporarily every time you don’t have need for it. Won’t it be great, though, if it were possible to view or hide widgets by performing simple gestures? MusicWidget (velox style) is a simple tweak that lets you do just that. With this tweak installed, you can control music playback right from the icon of the iOS stock Music app without having to launch it. Read More

Change Video Playback Speed In Any iPhone Media App With FastForward

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At first glance, the playback speed control in the Podcasts app for iOS might appear to many as nothing more than a novelty that doesn't have any productive purpose, but there are many users who like speeding things up a bit to get the most out of informative podcasts in the shortest possible time. Of course, doing the same to a song might ruin it completely, but if a person is merely speaking, you can often afford to tinker with playback speed. Just like podcasts, there is some video content that might benefit users more if they can speed it up a little. Imagine you are looking at a recording of a presentation from work, or a lengthy lecture; increasing playback speed is likely to aid you to a large extent. By default, there is no way of changing the video playback speed in iOS, and all you can do is import the video to a third-party app that sports this feature. With FastForward though, it becomes possible to control the playback rate of videos shows in any app on your iPhone! Read More

Use Native WP8 Voice Commands To Get Directions To Any Location

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The fact that Microsoft hasn’t given Windows Phone’s voice control feature a proper name in WP8 (it used to be TellMe until Mango) might have contributed towards it remaining a bit underrated. The fact remains though that WP8 supports some decent voice commands, letting you launch apps, perform searches, and even control some internal aspects of a few apps (like creating reminders). Having said that, some recent releases in the WP Store have demonstrated that there is even more to voice controls in WP8 than you might imagine. We all know that Windows Phone’s integration with HERE Maps, and Nokia Drive makes it a good platform of choice for people who rely on their smartphones for driving or walking directions. With the newly released Go To app, the WP8 navigation experience might just feel complete. The app lets you use WP8’s native voice commands to get driving, walking or public transit directions for any place you want. Read More

Stezza Is A Metro-Inspired iPhone Music Player Ideal For Road Trips

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The Modern UI offered by Windows Phone and Windows 8 is not just aesthetically unique; it also makes it really easy for users to navigate between different apps. After all, it is always more convenient to tap or click a tile, rather than a small icon. You might not be in favor of having Modern UI for the entire OS but in some apps, it can undoubtedly be of use. One can certainly make a strong case for feature-rich music apps, but when you are driving or just aren't in the mood for navigating through a myriad of options to start listening to a song, a music player with a Windows Phone-like interface might be just what you need. Stezza is a music app for iPhone and iPod touch devices aimed at providing users the best way of enjoying their song collection, especially while they are driving or are busy elsewhere. Read More

Backup App Data, Rename Icons & Clear Badges From iPhone Home Screen

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Most of the times, we try to cover Cydia tweaks that offer a completely novel feature, but almost everything the new Icon Tool tweak is designed to perform can be done via other tweaks. There are plenty of ways of removing icon badges from iOS apps, backing up app data using various tools and clearing an app’s cache. With Icon Tool though, you get all these options in one tweak, and the best part is that you don’t have to navigate through complicated menus to perform these tasks either, as Icon Tool adds an easily accessible context menu of sorts to all icons present on your iPhone’s SpringBoard. Read More

Select Songs To Play Right From The iPhone Lock Screen With Pluck

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Remember Tempus, the Cydia tweak that turns the iOS lock screen into a fully featured music player? Tweaks of this kind might appeal to some users, but others might label them pointless since you are losing the basic purpose of lock screen by adding too many controls to it. On the other hand, you have options like LSMusicGestures, which doesn’t add any visible buttons the lock screen, but lets you control playback using gestures. Pluck is a new tweak that is even simpler than LSMusicGestures, and it addresses an issue that we are sure most iOS users have faced at one time or another. Pluck adds a small button to the lock screen playback controls that can be used to access the songs and playlists present in the device’s music library. This means you can start listening to the song of your choice without even unlocking the screen. Read More

LightMail Is An Elegant iPhone Mail App That Displays All Attachments In One Place

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Apps like Sparrow gained popularity on iOS owing to the stock Mail client having a lot of shortcomings. Apple overhauled the email experience with iOS 6, but there are some new apps around that have managed to gain a considerable number of users. The Mailbox app experimented by combining mail and to-do lists, which is why people even put up with its waiting queue. LightMail doesn't offer changes that are as dramatic as those introduced by Mailbox, but the new app is still great if you are looking for an improved version of the iOS Mail app. LightMail supports a few gestures for letting you respond to messages quickly, and comes with a section where attachments from all your mails are accessible in one place. It is also possible to easily insert attachments from past messages into mails you are composing on your iPhone. Read More

Quickly Compose & Reply To Texts On iOS Without Launching Messages App

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You might be a fan of its themes or the well-organized conversation threads but for most users, biteSMS is all about quick compose and quick reply. The ability to type messages without waiting for an entire app to load can be really time-saving and efficient. Interactive reply windows have been a part of GO SMS as well, and a few Cydia tweaks in the past have even added a similar feature to the stock Messages app. With iOS 6 though, ImmediateSend stopped working, and hasn't received an update until now. So, taking advantage of this vacuum in the jailbreak store, a new tweak by the name of Messages has just reared its head. The tweak is a bit more detailed compared to other similar ones released in the past, and offers integration with Activator as well. It is also possible to tinker with the appearance of the quick reply window, and choose the number of previous messages from a thread that are loaded when you are composing your reply. Read More

Toggle iMessage Read Receipt Separately For Each Contact & Text

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If Facebook ever allows users to choose whether they want others to see the accusatory ‘seen’ indicator below their messages, we are pretty confident that a significant majority will likely disable the feature for good. iMessage has been offering similar read receipts for a long time, but at least you can turn them off at will from the Settings app. There are occasions, however, when keeping these receipts enabled can help. If you are talking to a close friend, it is probably convenient to keep the read receipt enabled, but during a conversation with your boss, you might not want that. SelectiveReading is a Cydia tweak that grants you complete control over iMessage read receipts. Users can choose to turn of the receipts for certain contacts, turn them permanently on for others, or even choose to make the decision individually for every message they receive. Read More

Place Text & Doodles Over iPhone Photos In Real Time With Text Camera

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A few months back, Instagram announced its decision to remove live filters from the famous app, and not many have received this omission kindly. You can always edit your photos after you have snapped them, but the capability of applying filters and other image effects even before shooting the picture is sure to come in handy every once in a while. A testament to this is the popularity apps offering real-time filters have gained in the recent past. Text Camera for iPhone goes beyond simple image effects, and lets you overlay doodles, text snippets and even quotes over the scene you are about to capture. You can easily adjust the position of these entities by simply dragging them around, and to keep you coming back for more, Text Camera offers the option to unlock more effects by sharing photos through it. Read More

Make Objects In Photos Pop Out Of Their Frames With PopAGraph For iOS

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Instagram can make your photos look good without much effort, but this convenience comes at a cost. Since there are a only a limited number of photo effects available in all one-touch photo editors, a lot of times monotony might start creeping into your pictures. This is why there is always a market for photo editors that aren't too complicated but still offer some level of control over the output. If you are looking for an iOS app of this kind, ColorStrokes might be the simplest available option, while AnyShape is a similar though more complicated photo editor. The newly released PopAGraph offers a way to edit selective portions of an image, making an object within pop out of the photo. The app lets you mask objects within a photo, apply a frame and then have these objects seem as if they're popping out of the frame, forming a 3D effect of sorts. Read More

Get Galaxy S4′s Dual Camera Photo Capture On Windows Phone 8

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The importance of front-facing cameras in smartphones has increased manifolds due to apps like Tango and Skype, but there are other perks of having cameras on both sides of your phone. Front cameras make sure you don’t have to hand your device to strangers when you want to take a picture of yourself, or even use the front cam as a handy mirror every once in a while. Despite all these advantages though, there are some things that even two cameras can’t accomplish. While taking a group photo, there always has to be one person who is forced to assume the responsibilities of a photographer and is left out of the picture. iOS and Android already have a few apps that can solve this problem by simultaneously activating front and rear cams to take a photo with both views. Signature Camera is a perfect example of this, while eyeReport is based on the same principle as well. It is good to see that a similar app is now finally available for Windows Phone. With Dual Cam Photo, users can easily add a shot from the front camera every time they take a picture from the rear one. Read More

Pit Your Karaoke Skills Against Friends With Just Sing It! For iPhone

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The popularity might have started to subside now, but games like Letterpress and Draw Something have managed to become the favorite time-killers for many iOS users. The main factor behind the success of such games is their ability to let you compete against real people, including your friends. So, you can easily show off your drawing skills or mental superiority using these games, but what if singing has always been your strongest point? Or maybe you just like karaoke and want to have some fun singing your favorite songs. Previously covered Sing! is a great app for karaoke singing but if you want an incentive to keep singing, you should definitely give Just Sing It! a try. Like Songify and Jam, the app augments your singing with different sound effects. You can share your songs over various social networks, and also challenge your friends (and strangers) to karaoke face-offs. Read More

Use The Gesture-Based TouchPal Keyboard As Default Input Method On iOS

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A discussion on gesture-based keyboards for any platform has got to be incomplete without mentioning the famed Swype. The app is massively popular on Android, and even enjoyed a brief period of iOS presence via Cydia. Now, however, it is not easy for iPhone owners to get a keyboard that is based on this type of slider input method. You can get your hands on third-party apps like TouchPal and Path Input, but having to type everything in a standalone app before copying it to the actual destination is never convenient. Every time an app like TouchPal is released in the App Store, users always wonder if they will ever get a tweak that integrates the gesture-based keyboard with iOS. If you have ever wanted to compose texts, notes, emails and just about anything on your iPhone using TouchPal as the default keyboard, there is now a tweak in the Cydia store that lets you do just that. In fact, this TouchPal tweak has been around in the jailbreak store for some time now, but has just shed its beta tag and works perfectly on both iOS 5 and iOS 6. Read More

Restrict Access To Apps & Photo Albums On iPhone With Protect Photos

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Despite the recent passcode-related bugs discovered in iOS 6, most users are satisfied with the security their iPhone offers by default. Having said that, when you are at home, or in any secure environment, the lock screen protection can get a bit annoying. There are a few ways of changing your device’s level of protection with a single gesture. If you have a jailbroken device, it is also possible to avoid the passcode altogether while keeping selective apps protected. Protect Photos is the latest Cydia tweak that lets you do this but as its name indicates, it focuses mainly on keeping your images private. The app can be used to put password protection on the stock Camera and Photos app and in addition, you can also restrict access of third-party apps to your image library. Read More