iPhone Homebrew

The traditional iPhone lock screen is functional but it's pretty boring. Watch as the Atom Cydia tweak turns the drab slider into an app hub you won't be able to live without!

It's been about a week since the Evad3rs Team released their iPhone jailbreak on to the world, so now that the dust has settled and bugs have been fixed, I will answer the all-important question: should you jailbreak, or stick to a stock OS?

So now that Cydia traffic is starting to calm down, you may be looking for a few additional tweaks to install on your newly jailbroken device. As is the norm, these tweaks may not produce the biggest effect overall, but they are certainly worth looking into if you are a fan of customization.

Apple has always had a way of designing their software that makes it incredibly pleasing to the eye. However this new app switcher makes all of their hard work look like it's lagging behind the competition.

If you're a developer, or you just happen to have your hands on the iOS6 GM released during yesterday's iPhone event, you'll be glad to know that the iPhoneDev team has already cracked their way into the system with a tethered RedSn0w  jailbreak for the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and 4G iPod Touch.

Whether we want to admit it or not, ever since the picture phone became a popular item there have always been times where we want to take a few pics on the sly. Thanks to this new Cydia app, we can make that service a little bit easier for you!

Infinidock is a nice project by a fellow by the name of chpwn, and allows you to have a horizontal scrolling dock on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Full dock customization: scrolling, adjustable icon amounts, and more! Add as many icons as you want, and the dock will grow to accommodate them, and set how many you want on every page. The ultimate dock customization tool, by one of the developers of ProSwitcher. Please report all bugs and submit all feature requests via email so we can take a look!

This is perfect for people who want more than 5 icons on the Dock without making the Dock look wack. Simply drag and drop the icons into the Dock. You will then be able to swipe to scroll through the icons as they remain in your dock on each page.
This app is available on Cydia for a low price of $0.99
Note: This app requires you to have your iPhone jailbroken with Cydia installed

For any of you that use Installer instead of Cydia or for any of you who care about Installer, then, you may like to know that RipDev have released Installer 4.0. From RipDev's blog:

we have added Greek, Russian and Ukranian localizations, redone the interface for speed, fixed a bunch of bugs and made it so it can bear the tag "4.0". And yes, we're proud of what we have done -- largely with your feedback.

So, that's it. If you'd like, go open up the dusty Installer app on your iPhone or iPod Touch and update. - source: ripdev.org

A group of students from the University of Toronto have completed an awesome iphone hack that could potentially replace most if not all remotes you have around the house. It's called UiRemote (Short for Universal Infrared Remote), for iPhone only at this moment.

With the help of this small accessory, you will be able to use your iPhone to control your TV, DVD, Cable box, Projectors, Digital Photo Frames, AC, Fans, & Backyard evil robots, whereever you go. Not only does it send out the remote control signals, you can easily teach it to learn any button on any standard Remote, or even a sequence of button clicks as a macro.

This project is in the final prototype stage — The team has been busy making UI improvements and is aiming to release the infrared module and application in a month or two. Stay tuned! - source: uiremote.wordpress.com

Ever wanted to watch a flash video through Safari but you couldn't because flash doesn't exist on the iPhone or iTouch? That's when iMobileCinema comes to play, you can watch flash video through safari with iMobileCinema. — iMobileCinema is a powerful plugin for Safari that enables you to watch flash video through the web via the iPhone or iPod Touch Safari

From iMobileCinema website:

iMobileCinema is a powerful Safari plugin for playing internet videos on your iPhone or iPod touch. You can watch millions of videos on any podcast site or blogs with it. Install it and visit Google Video, Youtube, or any other sites via Safari. Bunches of videos are waiting for you.

Demo: iMobileCinema is available for firmware 1.1.1 - 1.1.4 via the Installer Source: http://d.imobilecinema.com

Also available for firmware 2.0 - 2.1 via Cydia Source: http://d.imobilecinema.com

Keep in mind 2.X support is still under Beta.

- source: imobilecinema.org

A few weeks ago, RiP Dev released a little neat application named, Hood. Today, they released an update for Hood. With all new features, new icons, bug fixes and yes, of course, still free! From RiP Dev's blog:

• EDGE Toggle. Unlike other solutions (actually, all that I've seen around), this one disables and enables EDGE without touching the APN settings. For this reason, when you disable EDGE, the "E" icon will still be lit in the status bar (indicating that the network is up) but the respective service will be effectively down. This is much more reliable than before, and is actually the way Apple meant to implement it - the code hidden inside Preferences.app does the same.
• Settings. Now you can access settings of Hood inside of Settings > RiP Dev > Hood preference pane. Very easy and convenient.
• Process List. This feature is turned off by default, but you can enable it in the Settings. Hood will show a list of processes running on your iPhone, with the ability to quickly kill any of them by sliding your finger across the process name (much like you delete stuff in any table form on the iPhone). Be careful and don't kill stuff that you don't know, especially owned by root - or you may end up rebooting your iPhone!
• Assignable Buttons. Remember these four button slots on top? Well, instead of creating a mess by stacking 16 icons each doing something next to each other, we are letting you choose which 4 options you want. Later on, when more toggles are added in (VPN and SSH are next in line, by the way), you will have a wider selection. Assignable in Settings, as well.
• Really Quits Processes now. Version 1.0 only emulated the Home button press when you were hitting the Quit Application button. Which means - Safari, Mail.app and others were not completely closed (this is the same for most "other" managers too). Now the applications are properly killed and the memory is instantly released - as you can see on the pie chart.
• New Icons. Thrasos Varnava did us a big favor and made up new and improved icons for the toggles. Thank you!
• Bug fixes. Fixed a bug with Hood staying open when you lock the device with it open (or it auto-locks). Also fixed a few other cosmetic bugs.
• Still free! Hood was and will remain free and lightweight tool, thanks to your comments, support and suggestions.

Hood 1.1 is available now in the Installer.app category Utilities. - source: ripdev.org

If youre one of those people who gets phone calls and/or SMS messages 24/7 from telemarketers, youll love to know theres a way of whitelisting and blacklisting individual phone numbers, its called MCleaner!

MCleaner is a firewall apps for iPhone, which can block the incoming call and SMS, it's easy to use and good for you when you are busy, constantly in important meetings or discussions. The downloads and set-up is very simple, and you will get rid of all the unwanted calls and SMS.

This latest version of MCleaner adds:

• support firmware 2.2.
• "Accept and Hungup" which will hungup the call right after accept it,so there wont be "voicemail" for the blocked call.
• fix minor bugs.

How to install MCleaner:

• Jailbroken iPhone
• Launch Cydia, and Choose the Utilities Category
• Choose MCleaner and Install

Installer source for iPhoneOS 1.0: www.mcleaner.com/iphone/install Installer source for iPhoneOS 2.0: http://repo.neolinus.org/ispazio MCleaner costs $11.99 USD - source: mcleaner.com

Rip Dev have coded a pretty neat, free, iPhone tool in 8 hours. What does this neat tool do? Well, this tool allows you to toggle Airport/Bluetooth from on to off or vice versa, kill active applications, and monitor the memory usage in real time all at the swipe of a finger across the status bar!

Presenting a new free tool for your iPhone - coded entirely today in past 8 hours. :) The thing is called Hood, and it will add a quickly accessible panel to your iPhone that allows you to toggle AirPort, Bluetooth, kill active application and monitor the memory usage in real time. To activate, just swipe the finger across the status bar (that's where the carrier name, time, and various status icons are displayed)

Hood is available now in Installer.app, category Utilities. - source: ripdev.org

Anyone who keeps their jailbroken firmware up to date knows the pain of having to continously reinstall all the unauthorized third party apps on your iPhone. BigBoss has now made AptBackup available via the Cydia applications installer. This app sneaks a list of your installed Cydia application into iTunes backup files so anytime you use iTunes to backup your iPhone's data you will also be backing up a list of programs you've installed. The next time you update your iPhone's firmware (jailbroken firmware assumed), then restore your phone's backup data it will upload the list of previously installed applications. This allows for an easy one button reinstall of all your old applications in Cydia. Here is the official snippet:

This app will backup your Cydia installed app list. This does not back up your actual apps or apps settings. But it is close. It will make a list of everything you installed from Cydia and back that up. When you restore, it will reinstall all the packages in one step. The list is stored with other settings files and backed up with iTunes. After you restore your iPhone and restore your backup in iTunes, run the restore function here, and it should find and restore your apps.

Saurik is at it again, this time with an update to his free iPhone video recording software labeled "Cycorder". The audio recording feature that we've all been awaiting is here and FREE. Saurik had been debating whether or not he would bundle audio in with some sort of paid version of Cycorder. Luckily Cycorder is still free and can be installed on any jailbroken iPhone or iPhone 3G via the Cydia app installer (Note: Saurik is also the creator of Cydia). Recent Updates/Changes:

• Audio Channel Recording
• Colorized Navigation Buttons
• TV Out Supported Playback
• No AutoLock When Recording
• Minor (REC) Badge Fixes

Update: Saurik has updated again since this post with the following changes;

• Fixed "After 10 Minuters" Crash
• No StatusBar After Suspend
• Update MiB After Deletions
• Removed /tmp/video.mov Link

Here is a demo it took using Cycorder, another great in the "Alias420's La-Z-Boy POV" series:

Rip Dev has released beta 6 of the iPhone Installer 4.0 app. You will find this latest version available under the 'Updates' category from within which ever version of the beta you are currently using. If you don't have it installed you can use the latest versions of PwnageTool for Mac or WinPwn for Windows. Either of these tools should install both Cydia and Installer by default. What's New in Installer 4.0 Beta 6:

• Search. It searches among packages from the repositories you have added, and, if you let it sit for 5 seconds, will query our server and return packages that are available from repositories you don't have added (that we know about) with an option to automatically add and install. Repository owners, upgrade to the latest version of the repo code (below) to have your repository added to the search engine.
• Uninstall now works correctly.
• Fixed a lot of locking issues especially with custom HTML info pages.
• Updated the Categories and Tasks icons so they are less ugly.
• Fixed a bug with multiple copies of Installer appearing in Installed Packages under some circumstances.
• Installer will now correctly check and prompt for an update of itself.

RipDev has released his latest beta 5 update for Installer 4.0. To upgrade open Installer on your iPhone and go to the 'Updates' section. Remember this program is beta and is still being actively worked on. Early reports are, that not all the kinks have been worked out but much progress has been made. Here's what's new:

• Many visual enhancements and fixes in regards to source and packages display.
• Fixed an issue with failing installs with dependencies under some circumstances.
• Fixed a bug causing package information to be displayed incorrectly (size 0 bytes) on the first access, or when the custom information HTML page (such as packages from Big Boss' repository) was not displayed.
• When updating a package, and one of its dependencies also has an update available, the dependency will be updated as well.
• The package icons will only be downloaded when on the Wi-Fi to help you save on bandwidth.
• The repositories are being refreshed upon Installer.app launch so you always stay on the bleeding edge with the updates. This is exeperimental behavior and we're not yet sure it will make it to the final release.
• Fixed a script command Confirm that was returning invalid button index for the "OK" button.
• Lots and lots of both cosmetic and internal application core fixes that improve the overall performance, presentation and stability of the application.

Recently rumors of the iPhone phoning home to Apple and reporting back on what you've done to your iPhone have been swirling around the blogosphere. All these rumors started with one little vague comment from Zdziarski which he wants to set the record straight about. Zdziarski found that the iPhone 2.0's GPS program fetches a blacklist for Apps from Apple's servers at the following host 'iphone-services.apple.com' and stores the list in a cache file located in '/var/root/Library/Caches/locationd/'. This has now been confirmed by Apple's famed CEO Steve Jobs in a recent Wall Street Journal article (Google News link so you can read the whole article) when asked about the existence of an App kill switch Jobs responded "Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull," Zdziarski successfully tested the use of the blacklist by killing some of his Apps.

With a little DNS spoofing, I fed my own list into the iPhone and effectively killed (by name) applications that attempt to use the GPS. It looks like that's all it's set to do right now, but I may just not have found the "vaporize" switch.

So the blacklist has been confirmed but it must be stressed the iPhone does not report back information it only downloads information.

Only a list is downloaded; it doesn't "tell Apple" what applications you are running. We do not know just how active this mechanism will be in the future. It could vaporize applications, but so far we can only make it kill the ones using the GPS.

This blacklist retrieval can however be easily circumvented by doing a loop back for 'iphone-services.apple.com' effectively keeping that blacklist file blank. To achieve this work around you need to jailbreak your iPhone with either PwnageTool for Mac OSX or WinPwn for Microsoft Windows. After you have jailbroken your iPhone you need to edit your '/etc/hosts' file and insert the following line: '127.0.0.1 iphone-services.apple.com' This will tell your iPhone not to bother looking up 'iphone-services.apple.com' via DNS and go straight to '127.0.0.1' which is always the IP address for 'localhost' (the iPhone). Keep in mind though if Apple starts offering something useful through this server it will block that as well.

If you can't wait for the official release of Installer 4.0 for the iPhone 2.0 then you are in luck. Our very own Leif Erikson managed to dig up a beta copy and test it out for us. With great excitement we can report that it works! This beta copy of Installer 4.0 is now available in our iPhone Downloads under 3rd party apps or you can use this direct link: Download Installer 4.0 Beta After you've put uploaded Installer 4.0 to your iPhone 2.0 remeber to: Code: chmod -R 777 "/Applications/Installer.app" - Hit Enter Code: chmod a+srx "/Applications/Installer.app/Installer" - Hit Enter Have fun!

In Cydia's latest update there are major improvments to functionality and usability. After installing this update you will prompted to select your "user profile". You have three choices; User (graphical apps), Hacker (command line apps), or Developer (all apps). The point of these profiles is hide all the development or command line tools that many average app users don't care for. This will make navigating to what you want quicker by cutting out all the fat you don't need, of course you can always change your profile later on by accessing Settings under the new 'Manage' feature. This new 'Manage' feature is the bulk of the update with two current options for 'Sources' or 'Packages' and an ominous coming soon third option that you can't select labeled 'Storage'. If you select the 'Packages' option you will be taken to a new screen that will allow you actually turn on/off (hide/unhide) any Cydia categories. This gives you another way to reduce bloat and keep a streamlined interface customized to your needs. Finally if you select the 'Sources' option you will be shown a new screen that allows to now add new sources by inputting their URL. Note this URL must be a Cydia source not just any apt repo.