Tag Archives: tweak

Secretary For iPhone Narrates Alerts When Headphones Are Plugged In

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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

Swipe To Switch Between Messaging Threads In iOS With MessageSwiper

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Those of you who like sticking to stock iOS apps unless there is a supremely better third-party alternative available are sure to have been tempted to ditch the Messages app in favor of biteSMS or GO SMS. Having said that, a lot of tweaks in the Cydia store let you improve the stock SMS app on your iPhone. With ImmediateSend and Messages, you can revamp the app and give it a completely new look. Not every tweak has to be as feature-rich as MessageSwiper in order to be useful though. MessageSwiper has just one purpose, but the feature it is offering is sure to come in handy in a lot of situations and for a variety of users. The tweak lets you navigate to different messaging conversation simply by swiping across the screen. This basically means you aren't forced to go to the Messages app’s main screen, from any conversation screen, and can continue going through your texts in a very convenient manner. Read More

Grabby Adds Four Camera Grabber-Like Custom App Shortcuts To iOS Lock Screen

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No matter how many apps you have installed on your iPhone, the Spotlight search area can always help you in getting to the desired app without much fuss. iOS also has folders and a dock to help users keep their SpringBoard organized. Despite all that, it has to be admitted that the most easily accessible part of iOS is its lock screen. Since your device’s camera is often needed in a hurry, the presence of camera grabber on the lock screen in quite important. Won’t it be nice though, if there was some equally secure way of launching other apps from the lock screen as well? In the past, we have seen tweaks like AnyLock, which allows users to place widgets and app shortcuts on the lock screen. Another similar tweak goes by the name of LockLauncher. The newly released Grabby, however, takes a much less-exotic approach to attain the same end result. With Grabby, users can get four grabbers on the lock screen, and set each of them to launch the apps of their choice. Read More

RemindMeAgain Repeats iOS Reminder Notifications Every Few Minutes

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Ever since alarms started showing up in mobile phones, the snooze capability has been there for those of us who want just a few more minutes of sleep before we get up. Reminders and alarms aren't too different in theory, but you rarely see a reminder repeatedly nagging you to pay attention to it, especially if you use the stock Reminders app for iOS. Like any other app, Reminders just displays one notification banner when a task’s deadline arrives, and that’s it (unless you go to the Notification Center). A few weeks back, we told you about a solution to a similar problem on OS X, and now there is a new tweak in the Cydia store that shares the OSX app’s name and purpose. RemindMeAgain for jailbroken iOS devices makes sure that users keep getting notification banners from the Reminders app until they mark a task as completed. You get to choose the exact time interval after which the notification is repeated, making the whole operation really smooth. Read More

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

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

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

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

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

How To Hide Current Song’s Album Art & Info From iPhone Lock Screen

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Headphones were invented to let people listen to music without disturbing everyone in their vicinity. Another purpose of these little accessories is to provide you with some privacy while you are listening to songs in a crowded environment. If you own an iOS device, or any other smartphone for that matter, this privacy is violated to some extent due to the display of album art on your lock screen. We have to admit that the presence of the current song's information and album art on the lock screen is useful in most scenarios, but there are some tracks that you never want anyone to discover in your iPod. For such songs, the new Secret "Now Playing" (yes, it has quotation marks in its name) tweak is perfect. The tweak makes sure that users get to keep the control of their lock screen completely in their own hands, even when listening to a song. You can use Secret “Now Playing” to hide album art, artist name, album, and other information associated with the song from your iPhone’s lock screen. Read More

Pinnacle Lets You Hold Back Button In iOS Apps To Go To Main Menu Or Navigation History

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Anyone who switches to the iPhone from another smartphone is bound to feel a bit lost due to its minimalistic attitude towards hardware buttons. Even if a mobile device doesn’t have a dedicated shutter button, it is bound to have the essential Home and Back hardware buttons or softkeys. iOS, however, doesn’t roll that way, but that hasn’t stopped developers from coming up with alternative ways of navigating backwards in the OS. For example, tweaks like SwipeBack that make navigating bacwards within an app easier using gestures. Pinnacle is the latest addition to this sub-genre of tweaks. Unlike SwipeBack, Pinnacle isn't about going back one step in an app. The tweak is actually meant to help you easily return to the main page of any app that might have led you into its sub-menus. The greatest thing about Pinnacle though, it its ability to add a full ‘history’ list to the default back button in any app. Read More

View Real-Time Weather Info On Any Stock iOS App’s Icon

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We have seen iOS weather apps that change color with changes in temperature, and then there is Sun - a web app designed for iPhone that has an icon capable of displaying the current temperature in your area. All these apps are great, but most iOS users don’t like turning to third-party solutions if the stock apps are good enough. A testament to this fact is that a lot of people stopped looking for weather apps as soon the evad3rs released a fix for the Weather app crashing issue. The stock Weather app looks pretty good, specially in iOS 6 but ever since updating, I have been missing WeatherIcon - the tweak that brings the Weather app’s icon to life, and also lets you view the current weather stats on the iPhone status bar. Almost all major tweaks have gained iOS 6 compatibility during the course of the past few months and thankfully, WeatherIcon 6 brings the much sought-after weather tweak to the latest iOS firmware version as well. Read More

View Bandwidth, Memory & Storage Usage In iPhone Notification Center

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Users of SBSettings might know that the tweak's drop-down window isn't just a place to access system toggles; it also shows some basic system stats pertaining to your iPhone. N Stats is a Notification Center widget that isn't based on some truly novel idea, but it shows a few very important pieces of system data in graphical form, which is something not many apps or tweaks can accomplish without consuming a lot of screen space. This NC add-on shows just three system stats, but the developer has made sure that the displayed entities are the most important ones for most users. Thanks to N Stats, jailbreak users can get an idea of their device’s current RAM, storage and internet connection state at a glance. The tweak isn't customizable, but this only adds to its appeal since everything is ready to go as soon as you install it. Read More

Enable HDR & Grid Mode For iPhone Front Camera

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When it comes to the camera hardware in iOS devices, the rear cam has always had better resolution. Though in recent times, the differences between the software features enabled for the rear and front camera have started coming to the fore as well. HDR mode has been around in iOS for a long time and even after that, the stock Camera app has been updated with a few new features. When you are using the front-facing camera though, the app is pretty much like it has been since the days of iOS 4. There are no options, and you can't do anything other than shooting your photo. It has taken a while, but a developer over at the Cydia store has finally come up with a solution in Front HDR, which brings the front-facing camera almost at par with its rear counterpart. The tweak adds the familiar Camera app options menu that houses the HDR, panorama and Grid options. The panorama mode doesn't work, but the other two options are fully functional. Read More

Enable Background Audio Playback For Videos On iOS 6 With BgVideo

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When we open a YouTube video for a song, we are often interested in just listening to the song rather than watching the video. This task is pretty easy if you are using a computer, but not necessarily a walk in the park if you are on a mobile device. Until iOS 5, it was possible to keep any video’s sound streaming in the background, but for some reason, iOS 6 took that useful feature away. Now whenever you exit Safari (or whichever browser you are using on your iDevice) while watching a video, the playback stops and can’t be resumed using the lock screen controls or the buttons located in the App Switcher tray. Thankfully, a tweak available in the Cydia store has fixed this issue in a simple manner. BgVideo takes things back to the way they were in iOS 5. The tweak adds the video sound control back to the App Switcher tray and lock screen. Read More

Customize iPhone Lock Screen & Add Live Widgets To It With LockHTML2

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Widgets are certainly gaining popularity among iOS users. The Cydia store has a nice collection of interesting widgets for the Notification Center and SpringBoard. If you are a fan of making the lock screen more useful, there are tweaks like Dashboard X and LockHTML. Both of these tweaks have their shortcomings though; Dashboard X is a bit too complicated if you just want a simple widget on your iPhone’s lock screen, while LockHTML makes users do a lot of work in order to get the widgets configured properly. Fortunatel, the developer behind LockHTML has revamped the tweak, adding support for iOS 6 in the process. With LockHTML2, the wallpaper can be kept active in the widget’s background without having to go through a lot of hassle. The list of its customization options has lengthened considerably as well, making the tweak a lock screen customizer as well as a platform for widgets. Read More