ScreenDimmer

Available In: Cydia

Price: $0.99

I’ve been looking for a replacement to an app I used to use called iDimLight. It basically mirrored the feature of the Mac laptops that dims the screen to save battery when you’re not using them. I tend to never use the autolock feature and just manually lock my iPhone. Now I can have my screen dim after being on for 45 seconds or whatever I set it to by a new app that works with 3.0 to 3.1.2 called ScreenDimmer.

The app installs into your Settings app and not an icon on our SpringBoard. From Settings you can:
- disable the feature
- have it turn off the backlight or dim it
- toggle option for dimming the screen during charging
- adjust the timing from 5 seconds to 15 minutes
- exclude the feature while running certain apps
- and choose to dim apps with disabled idleTimer (apps like navigation or video playback)

I love this feature and it’s one of those hacks I say is worth jailbreaking for.

What I Backup When Restoring My iPhone

Before the recent event from Apple I was waiting for the announcement of new iPhone OS so I could upgrade and get all the new features. Unfortunately, there was no update as of yet. So, I decided to rejailbreak my iPhone. I’ve been missing push notifications from my last jailbreak and wanted to go a different route. Before I restore my iPhone I sync my iPhone and then use SSH to backup all kinds of stuff. Here’s the process I use. Some are redundant because the iTunes sync backs them up but many times I’ve had a bad backup or want to start fresh and if you don’t back up everything, you will lose it. If you can think of anything else, please add it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list.

1. Sync with iTunes. This will save all of your App Store & stock app information like notes, game saves, logins, etc. Again, if you are not going to restore from this backup then you don’t need to do this.
2. Remove all pictures and videos using the USB connections. If something has happened where you can’t access your iPhone via USB to see pictures, like me right now. You can go to /private/var/mobile/Media/DCIM/ and manually download them via SSH. Beware, if you have a lot of pictures and videos, it may take a while.
3. Take a screenshot of every page of your springboard. I also take them of Winterboard and my Settings app where the jailbroken apps list is.
4. Open Cydia and write down or take screenshots of everything under manage>packages that you’ve installed. Read more

How to Get More Than 11 Pages of Apps (No Jailbreak)

A while back a friend of mine text me these instructions on how to get more than 11 pages of apps on my iPhone. I now have 13 thanks to the hack so here’s the guide. From what I see, there is no jailbreak required to do this.

1. Create 11 pages of apps by dragging apps to all pages. There can be blank spots.
2. Fill the first page & last page full of apps.
3. Drag the Voice Memos app to the very last page and last location in the bottom right. (Not on the dock)
4. Move one app up from the dock so the Voice Memos app gets bumped off. Hit the home button so they stop wiggling.
5. Hold down power button and turn off. Turn back on.

That’s it! When iPhone boots up it should create a new page. It seems the best amount is 19 pages. That way you can still see all the dots I’ve also heard that it doesn’t work on older firmware. I’m using 3.1.2.

ScreenShot

via toucharcade.com

Update: I’ve updated the instructions for #2. I added that you need the first page to be full of apps also.

Let It Snow Widget for iPhone

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

This hack for the iPhone makes it snow behind your icons and above your wallpaper. It is downloaded in Cydia and activated by Winterboard. You must be jailbroken for this to work. It does slow down the device a bit and I did notice minor glitching when swiping between pages. My iPhone has a lot of hacks so that may be something to do with it. If you try it out, let me know how it works for you.

Twitter Plugin for LockInfo

Available In: Cydia

Price: $4.99 After 14 Day Free Trial (plugin is free)

A couple updates to the plugin for LockInfo that displays Twitter on your lockscreen have come out recently. Last night the update added the users avatar and it looked great! Unfortunately it was making the hack pretty glitchy when I would scroll up and down so I had to hide it. I emailed the developer, David Ashman, and he told me he’d get an update out soon to fix it and he sure did! This morning there is another update that fixed the glitching. Now it scrolls nice and smooth and I can see the avatars of my tweeps. Thanks David!

This plugin is available through the developer’s beta source in cydia: http://david.ashman.com/beta

How to Enable MMS (picture messaging) on Your iPhone (AT&T) [UPDATED x2]

UPDATE: The original carrier file v5.0 I had was not allowing Visual Voicemail for some people. I have updated the link below to a v5.0 that allows you to edit your settings and allows both Visual Voicemail & MMS to work. See the guide below for updates. (I’ve added steps 9 & 10.)

If you want to revert back to the carrier file 4.0 (no MMS) you may download here.

Ok, I’m super excited that I got this to work. I really think it has to with AT&T allowing it to work by removing the opt-out codes (the code AT&T put in to block MMS when firmware 3.0 came out). That’s why I think it took a few days for mine to work after doing what I’m about to show you. It’s really really easy. I’m running an iPhone 3GS, jailbroken, not unlocked, on firmware 3.0.1. Your iPhone does not need to be jailbroken for this to work and I have linked to the file needed for firmware 3.1. Here’s how I did it:

PC/Windows Instructions

1. Download this carrier update file (v5.0) if you are running iPhone firmware 3.0 or 3.0.1 (it might work with lower firmware but I haven’t confirmed it.) If you are on the new 3.1, download here (v5.1).
2. Close iTunes.
3. Click Start > Run > type:cmd then press enter. Run this command: “C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1


4. Open iTunes.
5. Hold the shift key while clicking update under your iPhone in iTunes.
6. Change the file type to “iPhone Carrier Configuration files” by clicking in the the bottom right corner and switching to *.ipcc.

7. Find the file of the carrier update you just saved to your computer in step 1, select it and click open.

8. You iPhone is now updated. You may have MMS right away if AT&T has removed your opt-out code but mine took a few days.
9. To allow for Visual Voicemail to work on firmware 3.0 & 3.0.1 using carrier file v5.0, go to your Settings app > General > Network > Cellular Data Network > and under Visual Voicemail change wap.cingular to acds.voicemail

10. Double check your MMS settings below the Visual Voicemail settings above to match this (do not enter anything in blank fields):
APN: wap.cingular
Username:
Password:
MMSC: mmsc.cingular.com
MMS Proxy: 066.209.011.32
MMS Max Message Size: 614400
MMS UA Prof URL:

NOTE: If you are on EDGE it will take a while for the image to send. If AT&T hasn’t removed the opt-out code on your account yet, you will get a red exclamation point next to the message.

Read more

Universal Search

Available In: Cydia

Price: $4.99

If you want to do more with search on your iPhone, check out Universal Search in Cydia. This app lets you search Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, Flickr, ESPN and a lot more! Best of all, you can do it from the spotlight search. Just type in your search item then tap search. The keyboard will disappear and show scrolling icons for sites you can search. Some, like images, expand to give you more choices. Tapping the icon will take you to it’s webapp using that search term. You can reorder the additional search options in the app’s settings.

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QuickScroll

Coming Soon: Cydia

Price: Free

This is a pretty neat little application. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it but I tried it out and it does what it says. It gives you a little layout of the area that’s scrollable within the current app and a green box where you are currently scrolled to. You can drag the green box around to quickly scroll to another area.

Right now the app is still in testing mode but you can download it here and manually install it.

User’s Manual

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Stack Coming to 3.0 With More Features! *Updated*

The developer of Stack, Steve Troughton-Smith, has been posting lots of info about the upcoming version of Stack for 3.0. The big feature here is multiple stacks. Sounds like you’ll be able to do as many as you want. The stacks will also act like icons so you can drag them around just like normal icons. If you want to test out Stack you can do it now if your iPhone is jailbroken and running firmware 3.0. Just visit steventroughtonsmith.com/stack to download and get install info. Eventually there will be a full release in Cydia when it’s finished.

I’ve also added some screenshots below to an example of Stack 2.2 with a theme applied. Read more

Tethering Early on 3.0 Without Jailbreak

I so got this to work. Just go to this site: http://help.benm.at and follow the steps. Pretty sure AT&T, O2 and others are not going to like it so I’d be careful. We only have AT&T EDGE here so it was pretty slow but it worked with a Macbook over bluetooth!

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List of Must-Have Utility and System Applications

I decided that it is time to create a list of the all the must-have system/utility applications for the iPhone and/or iPod Touch. So, below are 16 system and utility applications that you will definitly want to check out…for more info about each one, click on their title, it links to more info. I tried not to list the apps in any particular order also, some of the apps listed overlap in functionality (for example, if you have IntelliScreen…you would not need a status bar notifier application). Let me know in the comments what some of the must-have apps are on your iPhone/iPod Touch! Ok, here we go!

Note: These are all jailbroke applications (for more info on jailbreaking…check out our f.a.q page). Read more

Customize 2.2.1

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

Well I thought this was going to be big news. And, it’s a start… If you remember Customize you know what I’m talking about. But for those of you who don’t, here’s a little info. Customize lets you change all kinds of things on your iPhone or iPod Touch: sounds, system strings (like the Slide to Unlock text), icons, wallpaper, etc. There’s also a huge theme database within the app. It’s all very nice but tonight, it’s just not working for us. Very buggy, crashing our iPhones, not keeping changes, etc. We’ll keep testing it and watching for updates but I’d wait on this one for now.

Their site is also back up and running where you can upload your own themes from your computer that will show up in the list right on the app. Here’s a quote from the front page of their site:

Customize 2.2.1 (compatible with iPhone 2.2.1 firmware) is now available. You can download it here: http://customizeapp.com/uploads/release/Customize-2.2.1.zip.

It will also become available through Cydia Installer soon.

Best, Spicy

Check out some of our past articles on Customize.

Thanks to Ed for tipping us off to this!

Dashboard for iPhone Preview

Steven Troughton-Smith, the developer of Stack and other apps, has recently posted some videos of a hack for the iPhone called Dashboard for the iPhone. Looks pretty sweet! Right now he’s only shown a clock and sticky note widgets. The Dashboard appears when you tap the home button once from the springboard (home screen). Just tap the home screen again for them to disappear. Not sure how this affects the short cut that jumps you to the first home screen when you are on other home screens. The effects are pretty nice (see videos below).

LiveTime Becomes LiveClock, Gets An Update

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

LiveTime has changed it’s name to LiveClock by request of LiveTime Software. Along with the name change comes an update to version 0.2. There is now a “Dark” theme you can enable through WinterBoard. This is for when you are using a darker theme for your iPhone and need lighter hands. WinterBoard is also no longer needed for the basic hack to work.

UPDATE: Version 0.3 has been released with support for a digital display and an option for no second hand. So far we haven’t got the digital display to work yet…

SpinBoard Preview – Rotating SpringBoard Icons

Here’s a preview of a new hack coming to the iPhone. It allows your icons to rotate when you rotate your iPhone based on your accelerometer. The features are limited and it’s in the very beginning stages. We’ll keep you informed as soon as it’s released! Here’s a video preview (sorry for the poor quality, this was streamed from my iPhone):

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