Flex Lets You Create Your Own iOS Jailbreak Tweaks Without Any Coding Skills

The Cydia store has no significant rival for now in the jailbreak community, and it is pretty much the only place where you can get quality tweaks for iOS without having to worry about security issues. A few independent repositories have surfaced over the years, but none of them have managed to earn the trust of jailbreak users. Flex, however, approaches this matter quite differently. This new Cydia app brings tweaking to the masses. You don’t have to be a programmer to make modifications to your iDevice; all Flex asks for is a basic knowledge of the iOS file system. Even if you don’t possess that, the app is a good place to come across some great user-created mods for system and third-party apps. Read More

Add Image Effects To The Stock iPhone Photos App With PhotoFilters

We have covered a lot of photo editors for iOS. Some are a bit limited, providing just one or two very good features, whereas others offer a complete package, though at the cost of simplicity. As good as some of those apps are, most iPhone owners end up using the stock Camera and Photos app, owing to their easy accessibility and deep integration with the OS. Apple offers some basic editing options for photos in the camera roll of iDevices, but just the crop, read-eye removal and auto-enhancement buttons don’t make the Photos app an full image editor. There is a tweak, however, that does just that. PhotoFilters has been released in the Cydia store today, and offers some really good image effects right in your camera roll. There is also a ‘Blur’ button that can apply a sort of motion blur effect to photos. Read More

Lock Your iPhone’s Screen In Landscape Orientation With tsLock O

It has always bugged me that the iOS orientation lock is not smart enough to detect your device’s current orientation, and locks the screen only in portrait mode. Admittedly, most of the times you need your iPhone screen to stay vertical, specially when you are lying down, but there are some occasions when you might want to keep the screen in landscape mode, for instance when watching a video in a player that supports both orientations, web browsing, or even reading an eBook in some situations. tsLock O is a new Cydia tweak that brings this much0needed functionality to jailbroken iOS devices. The tweak simply endows the orientation lock toggle with the ability to lock your device orientation in the whatever mode is active when you press the button. You won’t lose the default portrait lock, as the new addition is really unobtrusive and comes into action only when you need it. Read More

Auto Trigger Multiple Actions On Your iPhone When It’s Plugged In

Activator has claimed its position among the very best Cydia tweaks available due to its sheer usefulness. Any tweak that is even remotely related to gesture control is either Activator-based, or improves upon some functionality provided by it. PowerActions is another tweak of this kind. Activator already enables you to define certain actions whenever you connect your iDevice to a power source. PowerActions does the same, but goes one step further and lets you define multiple actions for this single trigger. It also offers some additional actions that are not to be found in Activator such as displaying a customized alert, starting music playback, toggle some of the most frequently used system settings, or mute/unmute your device each time you put it on charging. Read More

TweetAmplius Removes Character Limit From Twitter & Tweetbot For iOS

Since Twitter is a microblogging service, the 140 characters limit for tweets is quite sensible. There are cases though when conciseness can’t help you. For example, a humorous tweet won’t sound too funny if you had to break it into multiple parts. In addition to that, many deem the character limit on direct messages to be less reasonable than that on tweets. There are countless web-based solutions to this problem, and even smartphones platforms have apps of their own to free users from the limitation. With TweetAmplius however, you don’t have to switch to a new Twitter client in order to bypass the character limit. This Cydia tweaks allows you to send direct messages and tweets of any length from Tweetbot and the official Twitter app for iOS. Long tweets are automatically shown as links that point to a Pastie page. Read More

Access Your Entire Music Library From iOS Lock Screen With Tempus

Gesture controls, playlist management and support for song lyrics might sound like features pretty standard to any music player, but imagine getting all this on the lock screen of your iPhone. This is what Tempus is all about. The tweak adds a ton of new music-related options to the iOS lock screen, along with a standalone music player that also works without having to unlock the device. Tempus offers access to your entire music library, complete with track info display, and the ability to quickly create temporary playlists. This multipurpose tweak also makes your lock screen perfect for scrobbling, thanks to the Twitter and Facebook sharing options available in the player mode, all while leaving the default playback controls unchanged. Read More

Set Your iPhone To Auto Enable WiFi When Launching Certain Apps

iOS’ most endearing trait might be its slick interface, but the platform is great at facilitating users in their everyday tasks as well. This is evident from the 50MB download cap for each app installation over mobile data in the App Store. Most of us have limited data plans and with the kind of internet speeds offered by 3G and LTE, one might easily forget to switch to a Wi-Fi connection before starting a heavy download or a long video streaming session. Also, if you don’t have a mobile data connection, there is no point in launching apps like Mail and Facebook without first activating your Wi-Fi. Carnitine is a new Cydia tweak that has been designed with all these scenarios in in mind. It allows you to decide for what apps you want to enable Wi-Fi for upon their launch. You don’t have to manage an extensive lists of apps for this purpose, as Carnitine lets you configure everything on the go. Read More

Pin Any Reminder To The iPhone Lock Screen With Reminders+

Setting an alarm for important tasks is useful to a certain extent but if you really want to get something done, persistent nagging often does the trick. Apple seems to realize that, as is evident from the constant presence of upcoming reminders in the Notification Center. While the idea is great, not everyone visits the Notification Center regularly. Your iPhone’s lock screen, on the other hand, comes into view quite frequently. Now, users of jailbroken iDevices have an easy way of pinning any reminder they want to the lock screen of their iPhone, thanks to a new Cydia tweak, Reminders+. Reminders+ calls this list of lock screen reminders 'Bulletin', and they are not shown in the form of lock screen notifications, so you don’t have to worry about inadvertently launching the Reminders app through them. Read More

50 Best Cydia Tweaks & Apps Of 2012

Overall, 2012 wasn't a great year for fans of the Cydia store. A good chunk of the year was spent waiting for that elusive iOS 6 untethered jailbreak, which hasn't arrived to date, and it was in 2012 that iOS users first started wondering whether there will ever be a new jailbreak. Fortunately, the pace of Cydia’s growth hasn't seemed to slacken one bit, and new tweaks have been coming out just the way they always have. Apple paid a silent tribute to some of the best tweaks from last year by incorporating their features into iOS 6, but the tweaks that were released this year made sure that they took the game to the next level. Since some of the real gems might have slipped under your radar, here is a compilation of the best Cydia tweaks and apps that we covered in the in 2012. Read More

Swipe Down To View The iOS Status Bar In Full Screen Apps

I've seen a lot of users complain about the small screen size of their iDevices, and maybe that is why designing full screen apps is quite a popular practice among iOS developers, and not just for games, quite a majority of which are full screen on all major smartphone platforms. While full screen designs are favorable in most cases, there are times when you might want a convenient way of taking a quick peek at the status bar. That slim strip at the top of the screen does, after all, display the time and essential information regarding your device's status. Though, most users would rather they didn't have to exit the current app altogether just to take a look at it, then launch it again from the home screen or App Switcher. This is where StatusTab can help you. This new Cydia tweak brings the best of both worlds to jailbreak users by letting them  temporarily summon the status bar in full screen apps with a simple downwards swipe at the top edge of the screen. Read More

Auxo Adds System Toggles, Thumbnail Previews & More To iOS App Switcher

Some of the most popular Cydia tweaks started their journey to fame as mere concepts from ordinary iOS users. The magical thing about the jailbreak store is that it puts no restrictions on imagination. That is why Cydia developers can turn concepts into reality pretty quickly, and the latest example of Cydia’s true potential is Auxo. The tweak was released a few days back, but very few people could actually use it since it was exclusive to iOS 6. Now however, Auxo has been updated to work with iOS 5.1.1 and above. This App Switcher alternative makes the multitasking tray much more cosmetically appealing. No longer will you have to bear the drab app icons in the switcher, as Auxo shows snapshots of apps themselves, right in the tray. Though, cosmetic changes are not the only thing offered by the tweak; you also get better music controls and customizable system toggles. Let's take a closer look at all its features after the jump. Read More

Set Your iPhone’s Screen To Turn Off Automatically When In Your Pocket

The iPhone is called a smartphone because it is meant to stay apprised of your needs and surroundings in order to automatically optimize usage to the maximum possible extent. You might have installed a lot of luxury apps on your device, but at times, it's the little things make the most difference in daily usage. One such feature is the iPhone’s ability to turn off its display whenever you hold it to your ear during a call. This behavior is controlled by the proximity sensor located at the front of your device. There might not seem to be too many uses of this sensor by default, but no part of an iDevice escapes the notice of the crafty developers working to keep the Cydia store populated. Always On Proximity is a new tweak that puts the proximity sensor in your iPhone to good use. With this tweak installed, you can quickly enable or disable the sensor from anywhere within the OS using an Activator gesture, causing the device to respond to it and power off the screen when, say, you put the device in your pocket. Read More

Add Terrain View (Topography Layer) To Google Maps App For iPhone

As can be expected for all major iOS releases, Cydia tweaks have started coming out to enhance the already awesome Google Maps app for iPhone. MapsOpener lead the way, and now Ryan Petrich has utilized a hidden gem from the app in the form of Topography for Google Maps. Apparently, Google Maps is capable of displaying the Terrain layer to users of any region, but the feature is hidden and there is no way of accessing it without the Google Earth app for iOS. For those of you who aren't familiar with Google’s Terrain view, it presents a 3D topography of an area, so that you can get a fair idea of the plane’s characteristics and elevation. Terrain differs from Satellite view in that it doesn’t offer a full aerial picture but merely focuses on the natural shape of the land. Read More

Change Position Of Notification Badges On iPhone App Icons With Boover

Notification badges for icons are a great feature in iOS to quickly let you know at a glance if you have any pending notifications in those apps. Though when it comes to the placement of these badges, it's another one of non-customizable features of the OS. Having said that, they have been around in the top-right corner for so long that people have gotten used to it and changing their customary place might not sound like a really good idea to most iPhone users. However, if you do want to move them anywhere else on on the icon, Boover is for you! It's a new Cydia tweak that allows users to change the default position of notification badges for all apps. The tweak offers several presets for placement, and you can also tinker with the position manually. As an added bonus, Boover can be used to hide icon labels of all the folders and apps on your iPhone’s SpringBoard. Read More

Have The iPhone Status Bar Change Color To Reflect The Weather

The color-changing status bar in iOS 6 might not be the biggest feature of the update, but it is certainly appreciated by many iPhone users as it goes well with the rest of iOS’ intuitive interface. Before the new status bar was introduced however, the Cydia store had a lot of tweaks that allowed users to change the bar's color manually. Many themes affect the top bar as well, but we are sure that no app or tweak has ever used the iOS status bar as efficiently as the newly released WeatherBar. This tweak cycles through a variety of colors on the status bar, but the choice of these colors is not random at all. Instead, WeatherBar takes stock of current weather conditions, and colors the status bar accordingly. This might not sound like a really useful idea at first, but all the minimalists out there are sure to appreciate the ability to get a general idea of the temperature outside without having to open any app, or even unlocking your device. Read More

Save Webpages As PDFs With Selectable Text In Safari For iOS

The Cydia store has a handful of tweaks that let users cache Safari content for offline viewing. You can even find one or two that convert webpages into PDF files, which can be read and exported in a variety of ways. The new PDF Printer for Safari, however, is at the pinnacle of this genre of tweaks. Don’t be confused by the name, as it doesn’t have much to do with printing. The biggest edge PDF Printer enjoys over its competitors is its ability to refrain from rasterizing text on the page, so that you can copy and edit it with ease from the generated PDF document. Another great thing about the tweak is its support for various apps. In fact just about every app installed on your iPhone that can handle PDFs is listed in PDF Printer’s ‘Open With’ menu. Read More

Lock Individual iPhone Apps & App Switcher Tray With Icon Passcode

Lending your iPhone to a colleague for a round of Fruit Ninja might not be much of an issue for the most part, but you don’t want them to be able to access your private texts and photos. Putting a passcode lock on the entire phone is certainly not gong to do any good in this scenario, since you need something that can password-protect individual apps while leaving the rest of the device accessible. For obvious reasons, you won’t find such an app in the App Store, but Cydia has some pretty good options for this purpose. Personally, I use a Cydia tweak called AppLocker, which is quite comprehensive and has options for locking both apps and folders. However, it costs $0.99 and takes some time to configure. Icon Passcode, on the other hand, couldn’t be simpler. This free tweak can be used to put a four-digit passcode not only on apps, but also on the App Switcher tray, which sets it apart from its competitors. Read More

Get The Stock iPhone Keyboard To Read Aloud Everything You Type

The VoiceOver option found under the Accessibility menu in iOS might have the primary purpose of helping the visually impaired, but a lot of other people use it due to the convenience and freedom it brings to the table. One annoyance in using this feature with typing is that you have to type a whole sentence and then select it to make your iPhone read it out loud. A new Cydia tweak called Speaking Keyboard rectifies this by adding text-to-speech to the equation, speaking everything you type, so you don't have to look at the device’s screen constantly. The tweak goes a step further and can be configured to speak separate words (complete with spellings, if you want) or entire sentences. The best part is that you don’t even have to select anything for it to work; Speaking Keyboard speaks as you type. Read More

Get Tasker-Like Task Scheduling On iOS With Timer Options

Reminder apps and task managers are abound in the iOS App Store, but getting notifications about your chores is not the same as scheduling them for automatic completion (and no, we are not talking about turning Siri into your housemaid). How many times have you set a reminder for something related to your device, like calling someone in the noon, or maybe turning your phone off at a particular hour? If you want to actually automate these tasks rather than setting mere reminders for them, we've got Cydia app that offers you this level of detail and control over the main functions of your device. Timer Options is a new release in the jailbreak store, and lets you schedule a lot of system-related actions for a later time. To make things convenient, you can set a timer by performing any Activator gesture of your choice. Read More

How To Open All Map Links In Google Maps For iOS By Default

You must’ve heard about this one maps app this really big company released on iOS a couple of days ago. Citing the significantly better maps data with more points of interest, accurate directions, turn-by-turn navigation, Street View, and fast-loading vector maps, this particular app has received critical acclaim from everyone in the technology blogosphere, and from iPhone users in general. We are, of course, talking about Google Maps for iOS. Yesterday, we talked about how you can use Siri to get Google Maps directions and today, we’ll be discussing a very useful new hack that, when applied, will open all map links on your iOS device in Google Maps instead of Apple Maps. Read More