FBPrivacy Adds A Bunch Of Features To Facebook & Messenger For iPhone

Don’t be fooled by the name - FBPrivacy is not just about improving the privacy level of your Facebook account; this Cydia tweak is more like an unofficial Facebook update that fixes everything that is annoying about two of the service’s most popular iOS apps. FBPrivacy deals with both Facebook and Facebook Messenger, adding some new features to them and removing a few that have never been too close to many people’s hearts. We have already told you about the easiest way of getting rid of the ‘seen’ indicator from Messenger, but now you can enjoy the same level of control in your conversations even if you have decided to stick to the Facebook app’s own chat feature due to the newly rolled out chat heads and stickers. Apart from that, FBPrivacy lets you attach multiple photos in a single chat message, disable the typing indicator, see timestamps for all messages, and much more. Read More

AppShopper Releases New iOS App Discovery Tool With Social Elements

AppGratis outlived AppShopper by a few months, but recently Apple decided to remove the former app from the iTunes App Store as well. Both the apps served the same purpose of letting iPhone users discover new apps with ease. AppGratis had a decent notification system, while AppShopper was great due to the number of filters it offered for browsing. There are other app discovery tools available for iOS, like Hubbl and Kinetik, but there can be no doubting the fact that a majority of users have been affected by the absence of the two most popular names in the app discovery genre. If you are among such users, your day might just get a little better after knowing that AppShopper has made a comeback in the App Store by the name of AppShopper Social. The app is better than ever, but hasn't changed so much that you won’t be able to enjoy all the familiar features you previously loved about it. Read More

Yahoo! For iPhone Redesigned, Adds Summly-Like Summarized Stories

Yahoo! is rolling out new iOS apps and big updates pretty regularly these days. Just last week, we saw the beautiful Weather app from Yahoo!, and now the company’s eponymous app has been revamped as well. It is not a huge surprise though that Yahoo! for iOS has been updated with support for short summaries of all the posted stories. Just a few weeks back, Yahoo! acquired Summly - an iPhone app that intelligently summarized news stories and had a great UI. As we said in our Summly review, the app offered a very unique concept, and coupled novelty with usefulness. Yahoo! removed Summly from the App Store after its acquisition, but the app has made a comeback of sorts in the form of a feature in the Yahoo! app. You can now switch to a summary view of the stories pretty easily, and the overall user experience has been enhanced as well. Read More

Easily Transfer Contacts & Calendar Events Among iOS Devices Over WiFi

The fact that iCloud has the capability to keep your contacts and calendar entries synced across multiple iOS devices might have contributed towards repressing the development of alternative ways to get your personal data transferred to a new device whenever you purchase a new iPhone or iPad. In case you keep all your contacts and reminders synced with a cloud service, this isn’t much of a problem, but if your data is scattered across multiple services or is only available offline, shifting from one device to another can be a real headache, even if the newer one is an iDevice as well. In the past, we have seen solutions like securedContacts, which lets you export your entire address book as a CSV file, but this option only works for jailbroken devices and requires a few extra steps even then. With Device Switch, you don’t need to sign up for any account or perform any complicated procedure; all it takes is a Wi-Fi connection, a few taps and you are done transferring your address book and calendar events to your new iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Read More

Enable Facebook Chat Heads & Stickers On Your iPhone In A Couple Taps

Only a few days have passed since Facebook released version 6.0 of its iOS client, but a lot of the features offered by the update have already gained popularity among the masses. Chat heads are the biggest addition to the app in its latest update, with the equally interesting chat stickers garnering plenty of attention as well. Unfortunately, both these features are not yet available to everyone using an iOS device. According to Facebook’s App Store page, the social networking giant plans to roll out these features to all users gradually. For now, a lot of people have been able to use chat heads and stickers on their iPhones, but iPad owners have generally not been so lucky. Even on smaller devices, a considerable number of users are awaiting the features. There is a rather difficult way to enable chat heads on any iDevice, while getting stickers requires even more effort. If you have a jailbroken device though, you don’t have to do much to get chat heads and stickers working for your account right away. Read More

Abstergo Lets You Clear Individual iOS Notifications Or Turn Them Into Reminders

It’s been around for more than a year, but some of you might still be using Lorem - the Cydia tweak that lets iOS users clear a single notification from a group within the Notification Center. A lot of tweaks dealing with notifications have been released since Lorem, and Abstergo combines the features offered by these newer ones with the functionality offered by Lorem. With Abstergo, you can get Remind Me Later options for any notification (just like with AnyReminder), and the tweak is also capable of letting you clear notifications from the lock screen or the NC just the way you want. You can use Abstergo to clear all notifications with one gesture, create reminders out of notifications without even unlocking your device, and convert texts into reminders from the stock Messages app. Read More

Connect Camera Flash Of Multiple iDevices To Get The Perfect Lighting In Photos

Smartphone cameras can make anyone feel like a photographer to some extent. It doesn't hurt to try and think like a professional photographer even if you are going to shoot a photo using your iPhone. There are some things, however, that just can’t be accomplished outside a studio. With an iPhone, you get a camera flash, but that doesn't give you full control over the lighting conditions of your surroundings. You can use tweaks like PhotoTorch to control the intensity of the camera LED, but there’s a limit to what a single flash can accomplish. In situations where you need more light than a single iDevice can provide, External Flash can come to your rescue. This great app allows users to access the camera flash of up to 16 iOS devices! You can ask your friends to let you access their device’s flash, and then shoot photos as the app simultaneously turns on the LEDs of all the connected iPhones. Read More

Osito Brings Google Now-Like Traffic, Weather & Event Alerts To iPhone

When it was initially released, Sherpa gained a lot of acclaim as many iOS users felt that the app brings the best bits of Google Now to iOS. As great as the app was, it was still in its beta until now. Things have finally changed though, and Sherpa has shed its beta tag. Not only that; the team behind the service has also decided to rebrand it to Osito. For those who didn't use the app previously, Osito analyzes your activities, location and calendar entries to come up with highly personalized notifications that can help you in a number of situations. The best thing about Osito is that you don’t have to configure the app to send you notifications; it does all the work automatically, and makes sure you are never late for an appointment or in danger of missing a flight. Read More

just.me For iPhone Combines Messaging, Email & Social File Sharing

With so much saturation in the App Store, very few apps can become instant hits these days. just.me has had some time to reel in a decent number of users since the app’s beta came out a few months ago, and it has been in the news for even longer due to the fact that some big names have been backing the project. Now that the app stable version has finally been released, we are pleased to see that it doesn't disappoint. just.me is basically an instant messaging app, but one of the great things about it is that the app works even if your contacts aren't on just.me, as such people receive messages via email or SMS. just.me also incorporates cloud storage, where you can keep any text snippet or media file stored as long as you want. The privacy is completely in the user’s hands, which makes it possible to use just.me even as a social sharing network. Read More

OpenSignal For iPhone Maps Nearby WiFi Hotspots & Ranks Cellular Networks By Coverage

Despite the availability of network monitoring apps for iOS, the platform has never had something as comprehensive as Android’s OpenSignal. The previously covered Signals 2 works only on jailbroken devices, and doesn't deal with Wi-Fi networks at all. OpenSignal, on the other hand, offers a  speed test, and has the capability of mapping out signal strength for both cellular and Wi-Fi networks. After a long wait, now you can have all these amazingly useful features on your iPhone, as the developers of OpenSignal have just released an iOS variant in the App Store. The app lets iDevice owners sniff out Wi-Fi networks in their vicinity, and also helps them in deciding which cellular network provides the best coverage in their area. Read More

Yahoo! Weather For iPhone Wows With Gorgeous UI, Maps & Detailed Stats

The stock Weather app in iOS gets all its data from Yahoo!, but the app’s interface and features are Apple’s doing. While that partnership is still going strong, Yahoo! has just decided to show what a really good weather app can look like on the OS. Yahoo! Weather is anything but just another app released in a crowded genre of the App Store. It has an interface to die for, and is no slouch in terms of features either. The app has unique backgrounds for most locations you add to it, and also makes it possible to view a detailed weather map of any area you want. The app supports a few basic gestures to keep accessing its features as easy as possible. Read More

Share Articles From Pocket For Android & iOS Via “Send to Friend”

To celebrate a year since Read It Later was rebranded to Pocket, the service’s iOS and Android clients have just been updated with a useful new feature. Although the apps are meant to let users keep webpages bookmarked for their personal use, Pocket seems to be going a bit more social now. The newly added ‘Send To Friend’ option allows iOS and Android users to share any article with their friends pretty easily. You can even opt to have the app scan your phone’s address book to make finding contacts easier. The recipient of shared stories doesn’t even have to be a Pocket user to benefit from Send To Friend, since the app sends articles to others via email. To add to the feature’s usefulness, Pocket users get a notification whenever an item is shared with them by another user of the service. Read More

How To Get Facebook Chat Heads Feature On Your iPhone Right Now

Like many other users, I am still getting used to the revamped Facebook app for iOS, but the update is pretty good overall. The interface is much cleaner now, and gives the app a very uncluttered feel. Apart from UI changes, the app also offers two new options related to chat - Chat Heads and Stickers. Seeing as how attractive a feature Chat Heads is, we wouldn't be surprised if Facebookers stopped using Facebook's Messenger app a great deal until it gets these features as well. Although many have received Facebook’s latest iOS update in its entirety, not everyone has been lucky enough to gain access to Chat Heads and Stickers just yet. Facebook has decided to roll out these features gradually over the course of a few weeks. If you are one of those annoyed Facebookers who are in the waiting list, there is a way of enabling the features on your account right now. You don’t need to have a jailbroken device, but some basic knowledge of the iOS file system is sure to help. Read More

LinkedIn For iPhone & Android Gets A New UI & Customizable Navigation Menu

LinkedIn’s Windows Phone update, which we covered yesterday, was pretty big, but it wasn't much compared to the complete revamp the social network’s iOS and Android clients have received today. The app’s interface has been overhauled to address a lot of aesthetic and usability issues. Not a lot of people have been huge fans of LinkedIn's mobile clients, but you should give the updated version a chance since it doesn’t look anything like its previous iterations. In addition to all the UI changes, the app has also gained the capability to let users like and comment on posts without ever leaving the main feed. You can also follow Influencers from within the app. The option to add sections of your choice to the navigation pane has been added to the mix as well. Read More

View App Store Links In An Overlaid Screen Right Within iOS Apps

Some might say that iOS’ ability to take you straight to the App Store whenever you tap an app’s link within a browser is an intelligent feature, but a lot of users are sure to disagree. Of course, most users click an app’s link with the intention of downloading it, in which case the feature is pretty useful, but there are times when you merely want to find out the name of the app your friend has sent you in an email/SMS, or just read up on some of its details. QuickStore is a new Cydia tweak that makes sure jailbreak users get the best of both worlds in this regard. It doesn't disable the links; however, you won’t be taken to the App Store either when you click them. With this tweak, it becomes possible to view any App Store page within an app or browser on your iPhone. You can even initiate a download from the popup window with a single tap before returning to the previous app. Read More

Get Android Jelly Bean-Style Lock Screen On iPhone With JellyLock

Imitation really is the best form of flattery, a lot of iOS users were quite flattered a few days back when Espier Screen Locker was released to replicate the iPhone lock screen on Android devices. Of course, we have seen similar apps and tweaks for iOS as well, like the previously covered ICSLock Pro. ICS is not the Android's latest version though, and all the newest devices come with Jelly Bean. So, it was just a matter of time before someone ported a few features of JB to jailbroken iOS devices. JellyLock is a new Cydia tweak that lets you enjoy a Jelly Bean-style lock screen on your iDevice. Those of you who aren't aware of the features of the JB lock screen can read our detailed post on the subject. Basically, you get to have a new kind of camera grabber and unlock slider on the lock screen that's in form of a ring. In addition, users can also place up to three app shortcuts of their choice alongside the camera shortcut - a feature found in several custom Jelly Bean-based Android ROMs. Read More

Facebook For iOS Updated To v6.0: Chat Heads, Stickers & UI Improvements Galore!

Mark Zuckerberg and his band of world-class engineers have made a habit of regularly iterating on Facebook’s design and features every few months even though, to the average user, the website works just the way they like. Each time, after some initial backlash from its enormous user-base, people just settle down with the updates, that is until the company decides that the current state of affairs isn’t good enough and changes everything all over again. This, I believe, is one of the biggest reasons behind Facebook’s success – revising design and features regularly keeps the service “fresh”. Read More

Quickly Ask Siri Predefined Questions Using Gestures With Ask Assistant

While the jailbreak store has a lot of tweaks meant specifically to enhance or augment Siri, we doubt if any developer has previously come up with the idea of using everyone’s favorite personal assistant in conjunction with Activator. MyAssistant does have support for gestures to some extent, but the idea behind Ask Assistant is completely different from that. This tweak lets you define five questions, and then you can program Activator to launch Siri with the answers to these questions. For example, to view weather through Siri, just define that question in the tweak’s menu. Now you can invoke Siri simply by performing an Activator gesture of your choice, without even long-pressing the Home button and trying to make Siri understand what you are saying. Read More

Add Torch Mode & Flash Intensity Control To iPhone Camera App With PhotoTorch

iPhone’s camera has a always been among its strong selling points but in recent months, it has been upstaged a bit by devices like the Nokia Lumia 920, the HTC One, and even the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4. One issue that has often been raised by critics of iDevices is their inability to use the camera flash optimally while taking pictures in a low-light environment. More often than not, photos shot in the dark appear overexposed or at times out-of-focus. Also, since flash comes into action only at the instant of snapping the photo, you are likely to end up orienting the device wrong before capturing the photo. PhotoTorch is a tweak that solves this issue by giving the control of the iPhone camera flash into the hands of users. You might have come across different ways of using your iPhone’s camera LED as a flashlight. PhotoTorch does roughly the same thing, but it adds this control within the stock Camera app, and also lets you adjust the intensity of the flash before you shoot a photo. Read More

Secretary For iPhone Narrates Alerts When Headphones Are Plugged In

We often hear people say that the iTunes App Store boasts close to 800,000 apps, but the implications of this statement are rarely mentioned. The presence of so many different apps means that we now have apps for all occasions, pretty much every kind of users, and a variety of purposes. As dangerous as it can be, a lot of people just can’t help but whip their phone out every time a new notification shows up while they are driving. Thankfully, there are apps that can help you multitask in a safer manner. DriveSafe.ly reads out updates from various sources, while a similar Cydia tweak exists for adding this functionality to the stock Messages app as well. Secretary is a new Cydia release that takes the features offered by VSNotifications to the next level. With this tweak, you get a spoken summary of any items that need your attention, and also get incoming text messages read out to you. Read More