Tag Archives: iphone

Control iOS Orientation, Brightness & Volume With Tap & Swipe Gestures

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It is certainly nothing new for Cydia tweaks to make use of gestures to change the values of screen brightness or the device’s volume level. Having said that, most such tweaks are not really a sight to behold, since they rarely use the default iOS HUDs or sliders, leading to a rather unflattering end product. Even if the looks are kept original, the gestures end up getting too complex to perform in daily routine. DoubleTap is a new Cydia tweak by Alan Yip that does a good job of bringing gestures to the party whenever you are in need of a quick way to change your iPhone’s screen brightness or volume level. With DoubleTap, you won’t have to decide upon an Activator gesture, since the tweak comes with a few predefined gestures and their corresponding actions. It even lets you toggle the orientation lock without entering the App Switcher tray. Read More

Explore The New Features In iOS 7 Using This Interactive Web Demo

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Back in the days when Windows Phone was still the new kid on the block, Microsoft released an interactive web-based demo of the platform to entice users of other smartphones. The announcement of Blackberry Z10 was also accompanied by Glimpse, which allowed users to explore some of the finer aspects of BB10. It is a testament to the popularity of iOS that Apple hasn't released a demo for the latest iOS 7 update, but some fans have gone to great pains to create one themselves. The Recombu demo of iOS 7 beta is interactive, and offers a pretty decent representation of the update. You can use some of the apps, take a good look at the new UI elements and even get a firsthand experience with features like Control Center. Read More

Facebook For iOS Gets Status Icons & Convenient Privacy Controls

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The Facebook app for iPhone is adequate enough to keep users away from the service’s desktop version for weeks. If, like me, you rely almost exclusively on Facebook’s app to stay in touch with your friends, then you might be a little confused seeing all the smiley faces and ‘feelings’ in the status updates all over your News Feed. The new status icons were introduced by Facebook in its desktop version a few weeks back, and the iPhone app has been updated with support for them just today. Now you can really let the world know how you are feeling, or what’s your bedside read these days. Apart from this major change, the update has also brought more easily accessible privacy controls and the ability to conveniently forward images received in messages. There's still no hashtag search and visibility, though. Read More

View & Post To All Social Networks From One Place With Fuse For iPhone

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With social networking sites introducing new features on an almost weekly basis, our online lives are finally going towards being streamlined. You can simultaneously post on Twitter and Facebook, while popular photo sharing apps like Instagram come with some impressive social media integration as well. When everything is converging, it seems reasonable to have services that are capable of combining your social networks without making you leave any of them. In the past, we have covered a few such services like Yoono for web and Cloze for iOS, but such services very rarely offer a news feed that truly combines updates from all of your accounts. Even if they do, the whole thing is often a complete mess and you end up missing several important posts. Fuse: Social takes care to keep things simple while offering a feed combining posts from Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Rather than just showing updates, what sets Fuse apart is that it even lets you use almost every major feature of these social networks. Read More

Eventiles Auto-Creates Contextual Albums Out Of Your iPhone Photos

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You might not see it all the time, but every photo snapped using an iOS device has some EXIF data associated with it. If you have a jailbroken device, there are some ways of viewing these EXIF properties within the stock Photos app, but we have seen in the past that apps like Handy Album can put this information to even better use. Eventiles is somewhat similar to Handy Album, but has expanded the concept even further. With this iPhone app, you don’t need to perform any manual work, as it generates neat albums out of all the photos present in your device’s camera roll. The albums created by Eventiles use location and time data associated with pictures to group them together, and the app is even smart enough to assign suitable titles to these collections. As an added bonus, you get to apply beautiful filers to entire albums with a single tap, which can be really useful if you want to share the collection over your social network later. Read More

Sleep Genius For iPhone Manages Your Nap Cycles Based On Scientific Research

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Science might be able to phase out sleep to some extent in the future, but for now we need to take a nap whenever reinvigoration of the body and mind is needed. If your daily sleep is cut short by even a few hours, the entire day is largely affected. There are plenty of smartphone apps that claim to help users fall asleep, but Sleep Genius appears to be taking a completely reasonable approach to the problem. It doesn't make claims that are as lofty as the ones made by Dream:ON, but isn't as mundane as the previously covered Bedtime Help either. With Sleep Genius running on your iPhone, you can get a good night’s sleep thanks to the sound effects and ambient music it provides. Anyone who is in the habit of taking power naps is sure to love the app, since it has a whole menu dedicated to these short sleep spells. Even when it comes to waking up, Sleep Genius is different from its competitors, as it wakes you up gradually over the course of five minutes. Read More

Vox Gives The iPhone Battery Indicator A Minimal, Circular Design

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A lot has been said and written about Apple’s new flat UI for iOS 7, and the emphasis on minimalism in almost all areas of the platform. Many have taken issue with the way app icons look in the update’s beta version, but some have also been appreciative of a few UI elements in iOS 7. The status bar received its chameleon-like characteristics in iOS 6, and has been revamped yet again in iOS 7. The signal bars are now rounded instead of vertical, and the battery indicator is new as well. Vox is not a port of the iOS 7 battery indicator by any means; rather it shows an alternative way the icon could have been redesigned to go with the update’s other minimal features. Rather than replicating an old-style alkaline cell, the Vox indicator is circular and changes its properties to match the current level of your device’s battery. The tweak is pretty unique for iOS, although it is somewhat reminiscent of the circular battery mod that came out for Android quite a while back. Read More

Identify & Scrobble Music The Social Way On Android & iOS With #nwplyng

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Although Shazam has gained a host of social features with the passage of time, it is still a far cry from some of the services that are designed exclusively for sharing your taste in music with friends. #nwplyng combines scrobbling and song identification in a really organized manner, but there is more to this app than just that. There are a number of ways you get to share your choices with your friends. You can search for a song on YouTube and post it to your feeds, identify it using your device’s speaker, or simply enjoy the tracks shared by people you follow. #nwplyng is available for both Android and iOS, and works identically on both platforms. Other than a neat commenting system, #nwplyng also offers a collection of badges that can be unlocked by accomplishing different targets related to the app’s usage. Read More

NC Enough Sets iPhone NC To Cover Only As Much Screen As Needed

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The Notification Center of jailbroken iOS devices is often filled with interesting widgets and toggles that make our lives much easier. No matter how bloated your NC has become though, it is likely that whenever you invoke it, there will be a reasonable amount of empty space at the bottom of everything. With an iPad, on the other hand, things are completely different. The Notification Center is always just large enough to let everything fit inside it. As soon as you get rid of pending notifications, the NC shrinks back to its minimum size. If you like this feature, and want the NC to behave this way on your iPhone as well, NCEnough is the perfect tweak for you. Other features of the tweak include letting users change the color of the NC (a bit like Custom NC Background), and keeping the SpringBoard accessible even when the Notification Center is active. Read More

Get iOS 7 Control Center Toggles & In iOS 6 Notification Center

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You might not agree with Jony Ive’s design choices for iOS 7, but there can be no denying the fact that in terms of features, the upcoming version of iOS is going to be the best yet. Things like AirDrop, Control Center and improved multitasking have the potential to improve an average user’s experience on an iPhone. Having said that, most Apple fans have to wait a few more months before they can get their hands on iOS 7 and until then, the jailbreak community is busy bringing different features of the update to older versions of iOS. We have already covered a theme that replicates the iOS 7 lock screen, and another one that modifies just about everything else to give you a taste of the update right now. When Control Center was first introduced, every Cydia user must have thought of SBSettings or NCSettings, and maybe that is why no developer has bothered with a full port of the feature to iOS 6. However, almost all the components of Control Center are available in the jailbreak store; you just have to know where to look. Read More

Check Your iPhone For Notifications Without Taking It Out Of Your Pocket

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It might seem difficult to even imagine that now, but not too long ago, iOS didn't have a Notification Center. We have come quite a long way since then, but some basic problems still stand unresolved. While you can easily view missed notifications by heading to the Notification Center, some alerts are really time-sensitive and require the user’s attention immediately. This is why LED notification alerts have been in such hot demand for a long time. Vibration patterns can also be greatly helpful in making sure you never miss an important incoming notification even for a few minutes. The Cydia store now has a third and brilliantly simple solution on offer in PocketNotify - new tweak that can be used to check if there are pending notifications even without looking at your phone. You can check for new notifications even if your iPhone is in your pocket or purse, without the need to whip it out every few minutes to do so. So, how does it work? Let's find out. Read More

Quickly Toggle Autocorrect On iPhone With An Activator Gesture

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Almost everyone has a love-hate relationship with autocorrect. There are times when you simply can’t live without it, but it also has the potential to go completely out of hand and start messing up everything you type on your iPhone. Having an autocorrect bar above the keyboard can be a nice tradeoff, but the way iOS autocorrect works in the background certainly has its merits as well. Whenever you are typing something that's more formal, it is probably a good idea to keep the feature enabled, while during casual texting, it can be a pain in the neck. However, continuously toggling autocorrect is no mean feat, since the option is buried quite deep in the Settings app. Auto-Correction Switch can prove to be the perfect solution to this problem, as it makes it possible for users to turn autocorrect on and off using an Activator gesture of their choice. Read More

Minutely For iPhone Offers 3D Weather Maps & Per-Minute Crowdsourced Updates

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The concept behind SkyMotion seemed really revolutionary when we covered it back in December. After all, it is pretty cool  to see an app come up with weather forecasts that get live updates after every few minutes. As great as SkyMotion is, it is relying on weather stations to gather all its data. While weather data from different agencies can be pretty accurate, there’s nothing like getting a human being to tell you the weather conditions of a city. We have seen this idea put to good use in Ourcast, which uses crowdsourcing in conjunction with weather data from professional sources to bring users the most accurate weather reports from around the world. The team behind Ourcast has now gone a step further by releasing a new app by the name of Minutely. This app is pretty similar to Ourcast but with Minutely, you get stats like the exact time when it is expected to start raining in your area, or the time remaining until the rain finally stops. In addition to all that, you also get 3D weather maps that look stunning and show weather conditions at a glance. Read More

Microsoft Office Mobile iPhone Now Available For Download; We Go Hands-On

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Microsoft’s Office suite has always been among the most wanted apps on iOS, despite the fact that MS never gave a clear timeframe regarding its release. At one point, there were even rumors that Office for iOS isn’t even being developed, and there are no plans for bringing it to iPhone and iPad. Microsoft’s own mobile OS comes with pretty neat Office integration, which might have been another reason for delaying the release of the tool on other platforms. Having said that, there is no shortage of decent third-party apps for iOS that are capable of handling Office documents, like the previously covered Smart Office 2, but there’s nothing like having an official app for a major service. Completely out of the blue, the wishes of many iOS users have come true and Office Mobile for iOS has finally been released. There is a catch or two though, which we will discuss past the break. Read More

Get iOS 7 Icons, Lock Screen & Notification Center On iOS 6 Right Now

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Just yesterday, we were pretty impressed by a Winterboard theme that brings the iOS 7 design to the iOS 6 lock screen. The Cydia community, however, doesn't believe in going slow and has the ability to move at a lightening quick pace when it really wants to. There is now a theme available in the jailbreak store that bests iOS 7 Lockscreen Theme by quite a margin. Not only does this new theme make changes to the lock screen (that too with a visible camera grabber), but it also revamps the SpringBoard and Notification Center, giving everything the flat look that has already become associated with iOS 7. The theme, simply named iOS 7 Theme, is thorough enough to deal with even minor UI elements like the signal bar and the newly introduced charging icon. The icon badges are flattened by the theme to some extent, as are the icons belonging to third-party apps. Read More

Yahoo! Sports Comes To iPad, Gets Better Live Coverage On iOS, Android

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Yahoo! might not be the most active publisher on Google Play or the App Store, but apps released by the company rarely disappoint nowadays. Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! News have all been enjoying considerable success on both iOS and Android. When it comes to sports, there are already genre-specific apps like Yahoo! Cricket available, but if you want all the goodies in one place, nothing beats having Yahoo! Sports on your device. The app has the ability to let users define their preferences, so that updates from across different leagues and countries show up in a unified and neat manner. The app has never been bad in the first place, but its latest update might have made it just about perfect. For one thing, the iOS variant is finally optimized for the iPad, and the app also supports logging into a Yahoo! account for anyone who wants to use the Sports app on multiple devices. There is a dedicated section for live games as well, so that you don’t have to jump between different screens to get the latest scores. Read More

Take Screenshots Of Selective Screen Areas In iOS With ScreenshotPlus

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Tweaks like IsMyFlash and Capture View have already shown that something as simple as screenshot capability can be enhanced a great deal in iOS, but no screenshot-related tweak has ever been as useful as the new ScreenshotPlus. People rarely use their captured screenshots without first editing them to some extent. Although the stock Photos app offers basic editing options like enhancement and cropping, why bother using that when now there is a way of cropping screenshots even before you capture them. ScreenshotPlus is an Activator-based tweak, which displays an adjustable frame with a capture button that can be used whenever you want to take a screenshot of only a part of the screen. The tweak even shows the exact dimensions of the selected area so that users can grab accurate screenshots in a quick and efficient manner. Read More

Add Call Shortcuts For Contact Names In The Stock iOS Reminders App

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When Astrid started offering syncing with the stock Reminders app, a lot of people were quick to switch to it. Though the app became too famous for its own good and was acquired by Yahoo! a few months back. This means that Astrid will soon be shutting down, forcing people to look for other task management apps. Although there are plenty of decent third-party reminder apps available for iOS, many users might switch back to the stock Reminders app, as it doesn't have any glaring flaws and comes with a few pretty good features. Another benefit of using stock apps is that the jailbreak community always keeps striving to make them better. A great example of this phenomenon is the new CallReminders Cydia tweak, which adds a seemingly minor but very useful feature to iPhone’s Reminders app. With this tweak, users get to create reminders that have a contact’s calling information embedded within them, which means you can place a call without even having to leave the Reminders app. Read More

Get The Flat iOS 7 Look On iOS 6 Lock Screen With This Theme

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After all the mockups and speculation, when it was finally released, iOS 7 turned out to be rather close to what everyone was expecting after the “black, white and flat” revelation. There has been no shortage of criticism on the new iOS 7 design, and there are already some rumors suggesting that Apple might consider reverting back to a more conventional look before the final release this fall. Whether the OS remains flat or not, you can't deny that there are parts of the update that look good enough to eat. Very few people have criticized the lock screen, for instance, since it offers an exciting new UI along with features like support for NC and dynamic wallpapers. We are sure there will soon be tweaks that bring the update's lock screen features to older versions of iOS, but if you are just interested in looks, iOS 7 Lockscreen Theme is a pretty decent Winterboard package for that purpose. Read More

Evomail Is A Simple iOS Gmail App With Gestures & Universal Search

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Evomail has been around on iPad for quite some time, and has managed to entice many Gmail users because of its clean interface, support for gestures and an array of really useful features. The app is great for users who frequently need to perform a universal search in their Gmail account and efficiently switch between different labels. With apps like Mailbox and Seed Mail already providing tough competition in the genre, it is difficult for an email client to prosper in the App Store without being present across all iDevices. So, it is nice to see that  Evomail has finally arrived on the iPhone, and in addition to sporting a clean UI, it supports even more gestures than the iPad variant. Anyone who is looking for a simple email app that doesn't come with too many bells and whistles is sure to appreciate Evomail. Read More