Apple iPhone School » iPod touch

Jailbreak iPad 1 on iOS 5.0.1 with redsn0w

Douglas — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:11:08 +0000

For this jailbreak I will be using redsn0w for the Mac to jailbreak a first generation iPad running iOS 5.0.1. Most steps are the same on a PC and for other devices such as iPhone3GS, iPhone4, iPhone4-CDMA, iPod touch 3G, & iPod touch 4G. NOTE: iPhone 4S and iPad 2 are not supported at this time.

First you should make sure you are upgraded to firmware iOS 5.0.1. Just go to your Settings app, then General, then Software Update.

Next, sync & back up your device with your computer or iCloud. Now you can download the program redsn0w to your computer. The download links can be found here: blog.iphone-dev.org Once downloaded you’ll need to unzip the file and move the app to your applications folder. Run redsn0w to begin the jailbreak!

You’ll need to turn off your device and be ready to put it into DFU mode. Follow the instructions in the app on how to do that.

On the next screen you will need to make sure “Install Cydia” is checked and click next. Don’t worry about “Enable Multitasking Gestures” because that is part of the new iOS firmware 5.0.1. Now just click next and wait for the software to do the rest. You will see a few crazy screen shown below but soon your device will reboot and you will have a new application called Cydia where you can install all kinda of hacks and mods no available in the Apple App Store.

Note: A few parts of the process may seem like you device freezes up but things like “Moving Applications” and other steps just take a while. Be patient!

Firmware Update 5.0.1

Douglas — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:37:43 +0000

Apple recently released an update to the 5.0 software. The first issue they tried to address is battery life. I was defiantly having this issue on my iPhone 4S (AT&T) as my battery would be drained by about noon every day. I am a heavy user but my iPhone 4 always made it all day on one charge. This recent update did help and now I’m up to about 5:00pm each day. Apple has stated they are still working on more battery issues.

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The next issue Apple addressed was adding multitasking gestures to the iPad 1. There is a hack in Cydia for this but now it’s not needed. You can just turn in on in your Settings app. Here’s a quick video of how these work:

Next is documents in iCloud were not syncing back to devices correctly and were even getting completely wiped out. Not kewl! I lost a lot of mine but between email and my iTunes backup, I restored them. Here’s an article explaining how I restored them. I don’t have a way to test this now so let us know if this helped you out.

Last, voice recognition has been improved for Australian users. Again, I don’t have a way to test this but if you feel this has or has not been improved, please share in the comments.

iOS 5.0.1 Software Update

This update contains improvements and other bug fixes including:

• Fixes bugs affecting battery life
• Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad
• Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud
• Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

Products compatible with this software update:

• iPhone 4S
• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPad 2
• iPad
• iPod touch (4th generation)
• iPod touch (3rd generation)

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

Newsstand

Douglas — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:00:16 +0000

Apple came out with a new way to organize your newspapers and magazines a lot like how iBooks works. The app is called Newsstand and organizing everything into one place. Instead of having different apps for each they are all on a bookshelf within the app. New subscriptions also automatically download in the background. The App Store has also been reorganized so searching and buying newspapers and magazines are much easier. A couple nice features are magazine covers update to the newest actual cover and the newsstand app shows a badge number to alert you of new subscriptions. Newsstand is part of Apple’s new iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Learn more from Apple at apple.com/ios/features.html#newsstand

iMessage

Douglas — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:05:10 +0000

Another new feature of iOS 5 is called iMessage. It’s like texting but you can only message to others with the iMessage app. Currently only the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch run the iMessage service. It’s great because it’s a part of the current Messages or Texting app. For iPads and iPod touches, you’ll get a new app that wasn’t there before. For iPhones, It’s part of the same app used before for texting but won’t cost as a text through your carrier if both parties have iMessage. This will not work for regular phone numbers.

When using an iPhone, you can tell if you’re sending a text message or an iMessage based on what is displayed in the typing field before you type something. Here’s an example:

With iMessage, you can also see that the message has been delivered. See the previous screenshot again. You’ll see the word “delivered” under the message. You can also tell what type of message is being sent because the bubbles will be green for text and blue for iMessage and you can see when the other person is typing when a … appears.

A final tip to help you get it set up best: Go to you settings app, then Messages and scroll down to “Receive At” and make sure your email you want to use is listed. I had the word error next to my phone number and had to turn iMessage on and off again in the settings to get it to work again.

Restoring iWork Files Lost When Switching to iCloud

Douglas — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:49:39 +0000

With the new option to sync my devices to iCloud instead of my computer, it sounded like a great idea. The problem was, after a couple days of being synced to the “cloud”, all my files in Keynote, Pages & Numbers disappeared on all my devices. I have my iPad, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S all syncing and it was awesome to watch my files push in to my devices and cross sync between them the first time. When I opened Pages a few days later and all the files vanished. I was not happy. I have a couple major documents on there and I was trying to remember where I might have backed them up. I know I had emailed myself some files just incase something happened but I was having trouble finding them in my email and I know it wasn’t all my files from all devices from all three apps.

Then I remembered that I had backed up to my computer before upgrading. Could I somehow extract the backup into uncompressed data and see my files? Yes! You can! I even found a free app to help with the process. (Note: It does not work if you use encryption to protect your files.)

Here are the steps I took to restore my files:

1. Download the app called iPhone/iPod Touch Backup Extractor found at supercrazyawesome.com.

2. Run the app and click “Read Backups”.

3. Select the backup you want to restore files from and click choose.

4. Find the app you are trying to extract files from. This will work for any app but we’re looking for Pages, Numbers or Keynote. They’ll look like com.apple.Numbers. Highlight it and click Extract.

5. Find that extracted file using Finder. Right click on it and select “Show Package Contents”. This will show you the folders inside the file. Find the Documents folder and your files should be in there!

6. Now we need to send the files back to the cloud. Log into icloud.com and select iWork. Then, in the top right corner click the little gear and select “Upload Document”. Now just pick your files and upload them and they will push to all your devices logged into that iCloud account!

Let me know if this worked for you or if you have another tip on how to restore your lost iCloud files.

New AssistiveTouch iOS 5 Feature

Douglas — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 02:21:02 +0000

The 3rd Beta of iOS 5 has been released and one of the new features is called AssistiveTouch. This adds a pretty sweet set of features to the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. It creates a little draggable dot on your screen that gives you quick access to features like the home button, rotation lock, mute, volume, etc. Check out this video showing how some of the features work.

Video

Screenshots

Fahrenheit – Temperature on Your Home Screen (No Jailbreak)

Douglas — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:00:49 +0000

The best thing about this app is that it shows the current weather on the app’s icon as a badge and there’s no need to jailbreak. There are other apps like WeatherIcon that hack your Weather icon to show the current temperature instead of a constant sunny and 73. The app has other basic weather features that honestly don’t impress me that much. None of the maps are full screen on the iPad and they reload each time you tap on them, which isn’t fast. It would be nice if it cached the one’s already downloaded. Also, the maps show no state boundaries so it’s hard to tell where everything is at. You can also tweet or Facebook the current or forecasted weather. The apps is worth downloading for getting the current temp on your homescreen but not worth the extra $0.99 for the maps. This app is universal meaning it will install on all iOS devices.

Screenshots

MusicCenter – iOS 5 Widget

Douglas — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:00:33 +0000

Hackers have figured out how to add their own custom widgets to Apples new notification center in iOS 5. The first one we’re writing about is called MusicCenter. This shows you what song is currently playing and if you swipe to the side, shows the music controls. It is available in Cydia for free! Developed by @WrightsCS

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free

Screenshots

Reminders – New App From Apple in iOS 5

Douglas — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:35:14 +0000

I’ve always longed for a simple task management app that isn’t over complicated. I’ve also though of developing an app that would remind you of a task based on your location. For example, I could create a reminder that the next time I come a certain restaurant I need to remember to try their Salmon Special, or something like that. With Apple’s new stock app called Reminders, I now have a simple task manager with location based reminders! I am using the location feature the most right now by reminding myself to track my hours at work. When I arrive or leave work, I get a reminder to record my hours for the day. I also have it notify me, when I’m leaving work, to call my wife. She likes to know when I’ll be home so she can have dinner ready. One thing I don’t like is that to add a location as a reminder, you have to have the address in your contacts. You can’t manually add an address although you can add the current location. Best of all, it’s free! (With the purchase of an iPhone)

Find out more at Apple’s website at http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html#reminders

Screenshots

BytaFont – Change System Fonts on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

Douglas — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:04:37 +0000

There have been jailbreak apps that change fonts before but for the 4.x firmware I am liking an app called BytaFont. It’s free and there are a lot of fonts available with more being added all the time. Some are a little crazy but some are sweet. You can even have different fonts in different areas of your device. Here’s a list of all the areas:

- Dialer/Calculator
- Keyboard
- Lockscreen Clock
- Notes
- System

Again, there are a ton of fonts but I’ll just show a few below to give you an idea. One thing that would be nice is if you could use different fonts for your home screen but keep stock fonts elsewhere. I’m guessing this is a Apple firmware limitation.

Available In: Cydia

Price: Free