Apple iPhone School » BossPrefs

The New Look of BossPrefs?

Brooke — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:29:35 +0000

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

BigBoss’s website has been moved to a new url (thebigboss.org) and while I was checking it out today, I noticed that he posted about some work he is doing on a new app. I know quite a few of you really like BossPrefs so, you might want to check out the new app. Below are some screenshots and a description from BigBoss’s website.

“The toggles drop down when you swipe along the status bar. It is very fast and can be used while in any app without exiting the app. Suppose you are in Safari but realize your 3g is not yet enabled. Simple! Just swipe the statusbar and tap 3g and resume in safari where you left off. No need to exit safari and load settings or bossprefs.

Like bossprefs, this will have an addon module so you can create your own addons and also an application component that will be launched with the little settings button (see top right of the screenshots) to let you do things like hide icons and all the other cool things BossPrefs currently does. We are also planning to add some other cool features.”

You can check out the full article HERE.

BossPrefs 2.12b

Brooke — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:51:20 +0000

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

There have been a few updates to BossPrefs since the last time I did a review of the application. Most of the updates have been bug fixes or behind the scenes changes. However, version 2.12b of BossPrefs does add a new option. In the More section, you now have the option to Disable Apple App Killswitch. The Apple App Killswitch is referring to the ability in which Apple has to actually take an app right off your iPhone…like yours personally! Crazy! Well, BossPrefs now allows you to turn off the “switch” that allows Apple to do that. I’m not sure Apple would really apprecaiate that but, that is what the update to BossPrefs does. Below are the other two changes which inculde one bug fix and one code change.

Other Changes.
- Fixed bug with custom services that would prevent some from being detected running.
- Calling bundles by name to help in theming the dock icons. However, for whatever reason, the theming still is not working.

BossPrefs 2.06b

Douglas — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:30:12 +0000

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

The update to version 2.06b of BossPrefs adds a few feature to the application and makes a few changes to background processes. Below is a complete change log via BigBoss:

Change Log for version 2.06b:
* Added missing file needed to detect running state of custom services.
* Redid hidden icons GUI.
* Added ability to hide appstore apps now.
* Redid how icons are hidden. We now use 2.0’s restrictions mechanism to hide icons. This means that hidden icons no longer show up again on an upgrade of a package. The downside is, if you ever disable restrictions in the settings menu, (or enable it then disable it) all your icons will be visible again and you will have to hide them again. Note you should update poof (if you installed this) also. The two apps must be in sync if both used or hidden icons from one may not be able to be unhidden from the other.

The part that I like best about the update is that you can now hide both Cydia and App Store apps! The only thing I noticed is that the Cydia and Stock apps are in alphabetical order and then the App Store apps are at the bottom of the list and they do not seems to be in any particular order. Maybe we will see them added into the alphabetic list with the next update. Personally, I can’t wait until Categories is released (BigBoss says he is getting closer)…I use Categories A TON on my iPhone!

Restart/Respring apps available in Cydia

Brooke — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:11:37 +0000

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

A good restart/respring application is a necessity on any iPhone or iPod Touch (at least if you are doing any sort of customizing or SSHing). So, I thought I would run through the options that are currently available on 2.0 via Cydia. As of now, there are four application that allow you to restart/respring your iPhone; iReboot, PowerTool, Respring and BossPrefs. All of these apps are pretty much the same if not exactly the same as they were in 1.1.4 and below…they have just been ported to the 2.0 firmware.

iReboot gives you the option to Reboot your iPhone which brings you all the way out to the boot logo screen or the option to Restart your iPhone which will bring you to the lock screen.

PowerTool gives you the option to Hard Restart your iPhone bringing it to the lock screen, Soft Restart your iPhone which uses the Set Language mode to restart your SpringBaord and does not bring your all the way to the lock screen, Reboot which will bring you to the boot logo screen and Power Down which will turn your iPhone completely off. The Verbose Mode which will show the Linux code on your iPhone’s screen during the reboot, is not yet available.

Respring is a one-touch respring application. As soon as your open the application, it will automatically respring your iPhone to the lock screen. Not a lot of options but, quick and easy!

A few updates ago, a Power option was added to BossPrefs. In the power option you have the ability to Fast Respring which uses the Set Language mode to respring your SprinBoard and does not bring you to the lock screen, Respring and Lock which will bring you to the lock screen, Reboot which brings you to the boot logo screen and Power Off which will turn your iPhone completely off.

Honestly, it is totally up to personal preference on this one. All of the apps work correctly and do what they say they are going to do. Though, I did find iReboot to be the slowest of them all.

BossPrefs Dock Control 1.0

Brooke — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:45:43 +0000

BossPrefs Dock Control is an add-on to the BossPrefs application (you will need to have a BossPrefs installed before installing BossPrefs Dock Control). The BossPrefs Dock Control allows you to toggle on/off an application called Dock. However, before you can use BossPrefs to toggle Dock, you will need to have Dock installed. Because Dock is an application that is always present, I think it is nice to have the ability to toggle it off. You can get the BossPrefs Dock Control and BossPrefs through the BigBoss source.

BossPrefs Autolock 2.0

Brooke — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:54:30 +0000

BossPrefs Autolock adds an Autolock toggle into the BossPrefs application. If you toggle Autolock on, it will automatically lock your iPhone after one minute of not being used. If you toggle the Autolock option off, it will completely turn off autolock making your iPhone stay awake. You can still manually lock your iPhone by quickly pressing the Power button on your iPhone but, it will not lock automatically when the Autolock option is toggled off.

I have found that you can overwrite the BossPrefs Autolock using the stock autolock option in Settings/General/Auto-Lock. So, if you toggle the Autolock feature in BossPrefs on and your iPhone is autolocking after one minute, you can go into your stock Auto-Lock feature and change it to autolock after 3 minutes and it will overwrite the BossPrefs setting and autolock every 3 minutes. However, if you go back into BossPrefs and toggle Autolock off, it will overwrite the stock setting and turn autolock completely off. So basically, which ever autolock feature you use last (Stock or in BossPrefs) it will overwrite the other. Which is good I guess. For those of you who use BossPrefs a lot, this might be a nice addition for you! When you install BossPrefs Autolock, it will not add an icon to your SpringBoard…it is added directly into the BossPrefs application. BossPrefs Autolock is available through the iSpazio source.

Note: You will need to install BossPrefs, via the BigBoss source, in order to use this application.

BossPrefs 1.72 & 1.73

Brooke — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:05:50 +0000

The update to version 1.72 of BossPrefs “adds ability to sort all the dock icons including the built in apps. Hopefully, this should close all issues with the dock display as well with small numbers of icons.” I think ability to sort all the applications in the dock, including Power and Poof, is good. I also noticed the the Power and Poof icons are no longer automatically added to the dock instead, you can add them if you would like. However, I can’t seem to get them onto the dock. They can both be toggled in the Config menu but, when I toggle them on, they do not show up in the dock even after a restart. Let me know in the comments if you are having the same problem. BossPrefs is available through the BisBoss source.

Note: To get the Poof and Power icons to show up in the dock, add another application to the dock and then close BossPrefs and reopen it. Then they will be there. Thanks to Ramrod for the tip!!

Update: Version 1.73 of BossPrefs fixes the bug mentioned above.

BossPrefs 1.71

Brooke — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:16:58 +0000

The update to version 1.71 of BossPrefs just fixes a bug “where if you don’t have at least 4 dock icons, the icon display was bad or unusable for some of the external apps.” BossPrefs is available through the BigBoss source.

BossPrefs 1.66

Brooke — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:31:22 +0000

The update to BossPrefs 1.66 does exactly what I was hoping it would do!! It fixes the Phone toggle so that it works with AT&T (contract carriers). I tried it and it works great! Though, there is one small issue but you will have to read about in a few sentences so make sure you read carefully! I am going to quote the Developer for the rest of the update info because he says exactly what I was going to say about the update!

Updated BossPrefs one more time for Phone / Airplane mode toggles.
– Reworked how Airplane Mode and Phone toggles work.
– Phone toggle now uses airplane mode but enables wifi. No longer limited to non-contract carriers.
– Bugfix: Fixed airplane mode still allowed WiFi.

A couple comments on this. In 1.65, the phone toggle would result in “no service” in the taskbar. But on contract carriers such as AT&T it did nothing at all. This version will look like airplane mode is in the taskbar when you use the phone toggle. But the wifi will be active. The wifi will disconnect for a moment and reconnect when you use this toggle. Also, you will get that annoying message about disabling airplane mode when you pull up the web browser. Just say “cancel” and you can then use the web.

So, overall it works great besides the pop-up that you get when you first toggle off the Phone. Other than that, I had no problem with it. BossPrefs is available through the BigBoss source.

BossPrefs 1.64 & 1.65

Brooke — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:15:18 +0000

There have been a few updates (~~two~~ three that is) to BossPrefs in the last few days. The updates have added the ability to toggle (turn on/off) Airplane mode and Phone. If you toggle the Phone off…it will disable your phone but will keep your Wifi active. Unless of course you toggle that off too and in that case you would probably just turn your entire phone off! Anyway, I can’t seem to get the Phone toggle to work. I toggle it off and it doesn’t seem to disable my Phone and when I go back into BossPrefs it is back to being toggled on, even though I hadn’t turned it back on. Let me know in the comments how it is working for you. Other than that…I still love BossPrefs! BossPrefs is available through the BigBoss source.

Update: There has been an update to version 1.65 of BossPrefs and according to the developer version 1.65 “Fixes airplane mode to work on 1.1.2 and lower, airplane mode to work if you’ve never used the airplane mode GUI option in settings, and adds a new airplane mode icon. Note: phone toggle won’t work on contract carriers like AT&T.” Well, that answers that. No wonder I couldn’t get it to work! Thanks BigBoss!! You know we love you!