Apple’s voice assistant Siri hasn’t faced a lot of competition since its release, but now that Google Now is available for iOS, there’s a little bit of insecurity in the air. There are some users who prefer Siri, while others are adapting to the search recognition offered by Google Now. It’s also possible for iOS users to use both with the latest Googiri Cydia tweak that enables users to get answers to their queries from Siri.

All the user has to do is to say ‘Siri’ before making any request to Google Voice search. There’s also an option to disable Google Search and use the text-to-speech feature entirely with Siri.

After downloading and installing the tweak, a new menu is going to appear in the stock Settings app. There will be two main toggles, followed by the option to donate to the developer and other credits.

The first toggle is for making the tweak active or inactive. The second toggle ‘Send All To Siri’ can be used when users want Google Now to transfer all queries to Siri. Turning the second toggle off requires users to say ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Siri’ before making any query in the Google Search. There are also words in the menu that can be said to transfer any queries to Siri from Google Search.

Turning on the second option doesn’t require users to say anything. All the queries said out to Google Search are dealt by Siri automatically.

Check out the video demo to see it in action:

Googiri is a new concept and a free download from Cydia Store. It’s available at the BigBoss repository and will be a great addition for those who want to combine the voice recognition power of Siri and Google Now. The toggles are simple and easy to use. Let us know if you give it a try.

This article, Googiri: Team Up Siri & Google Now Voice Recognition, was originally published at simonblog.com.

If there is one thing I wouldn’t miss watching is the next flick of the Fast and the Furious. While every popular movie today has its own iOS and Android game (as its counterpart), it’s a trend that has attracted gamers and movie couch potatoes and probably an app development trend to watch out. Yes, hooray for Iron Man 3!

What the heck?

Kabam Inc.’s Fast and the Furious 6 game was rolled out a few days ago, which is available only to the latest iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad models. On it’s description, it says, “Fast & Furious 6: The Game is not supported on the iPhone 3GS, iPad 1st Gen or iPod touch 4th Gen.”

How does it work?

If you have played CSR Racing, then it wouldn’t be hard for you to play this game. Frankly, I was expecting more from this app, knowing that it’s one of the popular and most awaited movies this season.

The app features a quick storyline of the movie and gives the newbies the basic tips on drag racing. While it only involves a straight lane street racing, one feature that makes it different from CSR Racing is the drift option.

Basically, the concept of the game works similarly with CSR Racing: choose your car, launch the start button, shift the gears and some boost from the nitrous, upgrades, and power-ups for your ride.

There are challenges and missions to accomplish to gain more cash and gold. Enjoy your ride in fully optimized retina graphics and unlock the tiers together with the Fast and the Furious 6 crew.

How’s the app?

The stunning graphics are remarkable, but the game is simple and a copycat of CSR Racing game. They could have developed a game similar to Asphalt 7 or Need for Speed (or better than those) and added some exciting storylines, missions, and places.

There’s nothing more special about this game, but if you’re the type of person who loves cars, racing, drifting, and pretty much caught up with engines and upgrades, it’s your call to try this app. It is a freemium game, which means in-app purchases are available for power-ups.

Fast and the Furious 6 is available for download via iTunes direct link. If I were to rate this app, I’ll give it three stars.

This article, App Review: Fast and the Furious 6 Game for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, was originally published at simonblog.com.

I personally own quite some number of iPhone case since my first iPhone 4 came into my hand until now with iPhone 5. Like many power users, I focus on the quality of material that it is made of, functionality and durability of the case in which the design really comes last for my consideration. And I may be carrying more than one when I go out for a day, as well as depending on the weather condition, where I am going to and what I am going to do.

Say for instance, I used Incipio Frequency for my iPhone 5 when I go out for photography all day long just in case may be careless is hitting or dropping my phone on bricks and rocks. I am also accompanied by a Mophie case to refill the juice of my phone in order to stay up at evening time.

However, summer is coming and a full cover of a phone could make it super warm when it stays in your pocket, or during gaming in your hands. It is somehow frustrating while other ultra thin cases could not offer same level of protection as my Incipio does. Until the day when I received this AL13 bumper I could replace all my non-lithium powered iPhone cases.

The story behind

It is a product that comes out from and funded by a Kickstarter project. The primary reason is pretty straightforward according to the designer:

We stumbled upon the idea at a trade show. We’d been searching for the perfect iPhone bumper for a while but never found one that could do what we wanted ? protect the phone, but be virtually invisible…was slim, attractive and made with extreme attention to detail. It was also ridiculously expensive…The next day we looked at each other and said, “Let’s just make our own…even more impressive and make it affordable”

I really appreciate such a clear objective to make things happen. It is indeed crucial for every Kickstart project to let potential customers and backers to understand what they will get in return of financial support, and how much value could be delivered. It is also impressive to me that, based on the output of product quality, they should have put much effort in getting the best in a supply chain context – from design, material sourcing, production, quality control and packaging.

The unboxing

The AL13 Bumper comes with a well-designed black metal and a covering sheet with its logo clearly printed on it. Upon sliding over the metal cover of the box, you will find the screen and back-cover protector package with the bumper underneath.

Design, features and usability

The designer has already highlighted what the bumper is about in one sentence that I could not agree more after trying it:

AL13 is a slim, lightweight bumper made from aerospace aluminum that offers protection without changing the look of your iPhone.

And there are some of the features and specifications of the AL13 in a nutshell:
- Made from Aerospace Aluminum: thin, strong and light in weight of less than 16 grams
- Anti-scuff Rubber lining attached as inside part of the bumper for shock resistance and avoid dis-positioning.
- Sleek Chamfered Edges that blend with iPhone 5
- A few millimeter thickness that raises the phone from surface contact
- Anti-scratch, anti-fingerprint and anti-glare PET screen protector

The installation of the AL13 bumper is very simple: first, lift up a bit the back piece at the bottom part of it and slice it out from the tray; then orientate your phone according to the opening of the iPhone buttons, face it down and carefully slide it into the case (you will feel the resistance by the interior rubber); slide back the back piece and click to lock the bumper.

How I feel about it

The very first impression to me comes from the packaging. It is so well designed and packed. The color theme compromises with the case I received. It gives me a feeling of unity – the box, the screen protector pack and even the plastic form where the bumper laid on.

The second thing is about the product design and the quality of it. The bumper is well constructed, carefully crafted and polished that I did not feel any little part of it rough. It is super light and thin as described. It is easy to install and remove thanks to its will craftsmanship. The good thing is that the sliding action will not touch and hurt on your fragile iPhone 5 back as there is a tray solely for it with the bumper. Of course, I did not perform any scratch or drop test but I am sure it is durable against those damages.

Another thing that I really tried to test is about radio signal reception. Unlike many low price counterfeit products the metallic case could possibly affect the radio performance, AL13 does not. I can still get full LTE signals on roads and strong Wifi connectivity indoors.

Hence the feeling and experience on hand is superb in this sense. It’s light-weight and sleekness won’t let your hands go into fatigue like some heavy protective cases in the market, which echoes with characteristic of “virtually invisible”. As a bumper, certainly you can still feel the texture of iPhone 5 backcover as many of your may love it.

While you may think for metallic care you can easily feel the heat that comes from the phone. Well for this AL13 yes there is a little bit warmth that I could feel when I use the phone heavily with 3D graphic gaming. But it seems to go off pretty quickly when I put the phone idle for a while.

One more thing that really impressed me is the screen protector. The quality is extremely good. Many of the retail anti-fingerprint ones may blur the screen a bit. The one packed with AL13 does not make your nice retina display lose clarity. The protector is smooth and I can feel the good quality of it when I could stick it in one shot without air bubbles. I appreciate the effort that the designer sourced every piece of goods inside the box with excellent quality.

Nevermind if you missed some good deals when the Kickstart was still live. AL13 Premium UltraThin Aerospace Aluminium Bumper for iPhone 5 is now available in the retail for $79.99.

This article, Review: AL13 UltraThin Aerospace Aluminium Bumper for iPhone 5, was originally published at simonblog.com.

iOS users have face no problems while launching apps, but where there are limited offerings is the lock screen. There are several tweaks at Cydia store that are purported as lock screen launchers. They do work, but most of them come with functionality that makes the user launch the app unintentionally.

Axis, on the other hand, is a new jailbreak tweak that offers features that are unavailable in other lock screen launchers. It makes the shortcut to apps appealing and users have several options for choices of icons. The tweak lets you pin 5 apps to the lock screen, which is a greater limit than allowed by other tweaks of a similar nature.

After downloading and installing the tweak, a new menu is going to appear in the stock Settings app and there will be three elements available at the interface. The ‘My Axis’ section contains the actual options which are to be used by the user.

Several apps are displayed by Axis. Some of them may already be present while others may not be installed. The list is also divided into parts based on genre. Sub-categories are also present for further division and personalized preference.

Those who can’t find the app they’re looking to add the shortcut for in the list can always add a custom one through ‘Add Custom App’ option that’s present in the subcategory. This option opens the list that contains the installed apps on the user’s device.

Users don’t have to respring the device after the tweak has been configured. They can start using it right away. Swiping across the unlock slider presents the app shortcuts at the bottom bar. Sliding any app upwards will launch the app.

Axis is available at Cydia’s BigBoss repository for $0.99. It comes with Passcode support and works on iOS 6 and above. Let us know if you give it a try.

This article, Axis Adds 5 Customizable App Icons on iPhone Lock Screen, was originally published at simonblog.com.

This is a guest post from Archie.

Yeah, the iPhone 5 is out of its league when compared to Android flagships this year. The quad-core devices have multiplied and feature the latest of what Qualcomm has to offer, an octa-core is threatening global domination, screens haven reached insane levels and Google’s Play Store is once again on the march. This time, it is within striking distance of actually overtaking Apple’s App Store.

The future is bleak for Apple’s flagship, the iPhone 5. Indeed, last year’s flagship should not be fighting this year’s slew of powerful flagships. It’s just not fair. Anyway, as the saying goes, all is fair in love and war and for the iPhone 5 this is very much a war.

Here are smart tricks which you can use to increase the productivity of your iPhone 5′s camera and increase your patience while waiting for the iPhone 5S and not selling your iPhone and jumping-ship to Android.

1. Use the Lockscreen to Take Pictures

You can actually open the Camera app and take a picture while the device is locked. All you have to do is to tap the home button while your iPhone 5 is locked and a camera icon will appear on the screen. Tap that and the Camera app will launch. This is great for sudden picture-perfect moments.

2. Shoot Pictures While Recording Video

This is a very useful feature for providing screenshots of the video you’re shooting. Just tap the camera icon at the top right corner of your screen while shooting a video to take pictures simultaneously. The best part is your recording won?t stop as your iPhone 5 takes pictures.

3. Use Your Earphones to Shoot Pictures

If you found the iPhone 5′s onscreen camera button to be unresponsive or you’re just not used to it, you can use the volume up button on your headset or the volume up on the device itself to snap a picture. How convenient is that?

4. Capture High Quality Photos Using Accessories

The good thing about iPhones is that the list of available accessories is just endless. Consider adding a detachable lens to your list of iPhone 5 accessories. You can use the added lens to produce much better pictures that are almost on par with DSLRs and mile ahead of the competition. Not that the image quality of the iPhone 5′s camera is subpar, it is even better than its competitors, but then the added quality wouldn’t hurt either. Olloclip is one of the great add-on for your iPhone camera.

5. A Shared PhotoStream Is the Way to Go

Sharing pictures has never been easier than with PhotoStream. With this app, you can set up a shared photo folder on your iPhone and add the pictures that you want your select subscribers to see, comment and like. You can activate PhotoStream on your iPhone 5 by going to Settings > Photos and Camera. There, toggle to ON both “My Photo Stream” and “Shared Photo Streams.”

iShoot You All

And here we go again to the crux of the matter. While the newer flagships, save the HTC One, flaunt cameras with higher megapixels (Sony Xperia Z, and LG Optimus G Pro) and cameras with many features (Samsung Galaxy S4), the iPhone 5 trumps the others through superior image quality and features that just work and are not too gimmicky. I say, don’t sell your iPhone 5 just yet.

The iPhone 5 might be outdated, but then, although out of its league against these new flagships it is still pretty iconic and still a solid contender for your money.

The iPhone 5′s camera, too, is just awesome.

This post is contributed by Archie, a tech blogger and an environmentalist who writes for an
e-waste recycling company, eCycleBest.com.

This article, 5 Tips to Make the Most of iPhone 5?s Camera, was originally published at simonblog.com.

An American designer once said, “Eventually everything connects – people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se.” I bet this game was derived from Charles Eames’ quote. Quite frankly, you don’t have to figure it out because the game speaks for itself.

 What the heck?

As simple as it gets, Betaworks One’s Dots brings you a minimalist addiction that could occasionally urge players to connect more dots beyond a sixty-second gameplay. This freemium app is available for iPhone and iPod touch and optimized for iPhone 5.

How does it work?

There’s only one rule in the game: Connect the dots. Yes! Simply connect the colorful dots on a clean and minimalist interface within a limited time.

Once you launched the app, Charles Eames’ quote pops up, giving you an idea on how to play the game. “Everything connects.” From there, you’ll be given basic tutorials on how to draw a line between similar dots.

Players must draw a line between matching color dots with two or more connections, clearing them from the screen in just sixty seconds. The goal is to connect many dots as possible, handing them out as points and beat your previous high score.

Players can form a square from any of the matching dots. The drawback is you can’t connect matching dots diagonally; either you match them vertically or horizontally.

Dots app is a freemium game, offering in-app purchases for power-ups and add-ons to unlock other modes such as Shrinkers and Expanders; starting from $0.99 to $4.99.

How’s the app?

Honestly, there’s nothing much remarkable in this game. While it bears a simple idea, it has a potential to stimulate “just one more go” mentality that works well in brief and logic-based mobile games.

Dots for iPhone was recently launched on App Store, it may take awhile to gain popularity in the iOS community, but it looks quite promising. You can download it via iTunes direct link.

This article, App Review: Dots for iPhone Connects Everything, was originally published at simonblog.com.

There are a lot of reasons why iOS users would want to see their social media history. It could be because there was an important phone number got deleted but is stored in social media history or just to see what the previous conversation was about (it’s a busy, fast-moving world and forgetting what you talked about the other day isn’t a surprise).

iOS users would appreciate the app that goes by the name TimeHop. It provides them a seamless way of keeping up with their history on social media networks. There’s a capsule created for all the content that you created while talking over the past years. The latest version of the app has added Dropbox, showcasing users what they uploaded before and allowing them to upload and save their new photos.

The interface is usually appealing with a yellow bar at the top. After downloading and installing the app, you won’t need to create a separate account and it just requires linking your social media accounts which includes Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flicker.

The feed of the app will also show the photos from Dropbox folder on the feed and can also present the photos taken on the previous day if you give it permissions to access your camera roll.

Head over to the second window through a right swipe on the screen. This is where you can invite Friends to the app’s network and also see those who’re already using the app. The history can be made public as well, which will allow others to see it.

The main page will have all the content from the past and the social site it was posted on as well as details such as the time, date an year. You’ll be presented with a Dropbox upload, a tweet, a FourSquare check-in; it can be anything.

The push notification presented by the app will let you see the capsule of each day. There’s also a small icon at the top left corner of the screen, which can be used to access the native notification system of the app.

TimeHop works on iOS 5 and above. It has been optimized for iPhone 5 as well. You can download TimeHop for free from App Store. Let us know if you give it a try.

This article, TimeHop App Creates Time Capsules Of Your Social Media History, was originally published at simonblog.com.

One of the best gestures available at the disposal of iOS users is ‘pull to refresh’. It’s there on social media apps, some third-party apps as well as the stock Mail app featured in iOS 6. If you?re really into this gesture and would like to utilize it more, PullAll is a newly released Cydia tweak that would interest you.

This new tweak adds a ‘pull to refresh’ icon to apps that’s customizable. You’ll be able to use the gesture on App Store, Safari, areas within social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and many stock and third-party apps.

The tweak works with any app that relies on WebView. You just need to swipe the top of the screen downwards (just like what is done with the Notification Center) to see the arrow icon for the gestures. The color of the arrow that appears is sometimes green and sometimes red.

You’ll find the tweak works pretty well with webpages on the Springboard as well apart from App Store, Safari and the official Facebook app.

The jailbreak app can’t be made inactive without being removed completely, but the Settings menu that’s added for the tweak once you download and install it can be used to add apps that you don’t want the tweak to function with.

There are other options in the Settings menu as well. You can use the custom color option to give the icon that’s used for refreshing. The ‘Use Label’ option can be turned on or off depending on whether you want to the label that’s visible below the icon and there are also options to change its color.

Check out the below video to see how the hack works:

PullAll is a tweak that would appeal many. It’s available at the Cydia Store through the BigBoss repository and comes with a price tag of $1. PullAll works with devices running iOS 6 and above. Let us know if you try it out.

This article, How To Enable Pull To Refresh for WebView Based Apps, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Those who’re regular users of iCloud would know that iOS 6′s native web browser includes the option to visit iCloud inside the bookmarks. This is not a convenient solution, and many avid users would just wish they had a tab for the purpose attached.

CloudLover aims to solve the problem, not by adding an extra tab to the Safari tab browser, but by allowing users to user the browser’s existing buttons and add gestures to them for accessing the synced tabs.

After downloading and installing the tweak, a new menu for the jailbreak app appears in the stock Settings app. There are only two toggles present for the user. The developer’s info is mentioned as well.

Tabs and bookmarks are two icons of Safari that can be used for creating a shortcut to iCloud. By configuring them, you don’t have to worry about the tabs losing their original purpose, as the tweak only comes to play after you long-press the buttons after configuring them to redirect to iCloud.

You can keep the tabs functioning normal by tapping them once. The gestures can be assigned on one of each of the tabs.

There’s also a possibility that the gesture may not work after you’ve assigned it. If this happens to you, close down Safari. Next, remove it from the App Switcher tray and restart again. This will make the gestures work.

There are a couple tab-related tweaks already available apart from CloudLover at Cydia, but they come with a price tag and don’t include any configuration to access iCloud within mere seconds.

CloudLover, on the other hand, is a free of cost download at Cydia’s ModMyi repository and doesn’t kill the original purpose of Safari icons. It works on devices running iOS 6 and above. Let us know if you give it a try.

This article, CloudLover: Use Gestures In Safari To Access iCloud Tabs, was originally published at simonblog.com.

I’m a fan of photo collage editor apps. I got excited when I stumbled upon this Instagram-like icon on the App Store recently and downloaded it to see how it works.

What the heck?

From the creators of PicsPlay Pro, JellyBus Inc. brings you this functional all-in-one photo editor enabling you to create a masterpiece of pic collage that you can share via social media networks. The hobby of iPhoneography has gone viral, and Moldiv is just one of the apps I use to create collages.

How does it work?

Frankly, I am used to frames and stitches. I’ve been reviewing similar apps before. However, something remarkable caught my attention while testing Moldiv – it’s almost complete with professional photo editing tools.

The app lets you combine and edit multiple photos in a single collage and offers awesome photo effects, stamps, creative frames, and tools for professional photo editing.

It’s a combo of the current apps I used – Aviary – Fuzel – FotoRus – Pic Collage – Jusgramm – Vintique – Instaquote – kind of app. For a newbie, the options might seem a bit intimidating, but for those who have been using the above-mentioned apps for a while, it’ll save you more disk space by ditching the others and sticking to this app.

It works similar with other photo editor, but it has its own intuitive controls for frame aspect ratios from 1:2 to 2:1 and direct options for stitches. Users can adjust the roundness, shadow, margin, and spacing. It features text captions inclusive of more than 250 fonts, 99 swatches and patterns, color palette, 34 labels, 14 styles, and more.

How’s the app?

The app was seriously developed for photo-enthusiasts and iPhoneography hobbyists. There’s only one drawback: the app could only support up to 9 photos in a single frame, just like any photo editor on the App Store. I was expectant to see 12 or more. Hopefully, the next update could support up to 15 photos.

For newbies, you can access a quick video tutorial via YouTube.

Overall, available as freemium app, Moldiv is worth it. Frankly, it’s better than InstaFrame and PicCollage. You can download it via iTunes direct link.

This article, App Review: Moldiv Photo Collage Editor for iPhone and iPad, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Taking screenshots on both iOS and Android platforms isn’t much of a hassle. iOS users just need to push the power and home buttons at the same time, and whatever is on the screen at that moment is saved in the native Photos app.

Capture View, a newly released tweak, aims to enhance the functionality of screenshots on iOS, allowing users to capture a whole list that’s scrollable in a single go or take a single part of a long list.

You can understand the functioning in this way. If you open a menu in your iPhone such as Settings that has multiple options and require a scroll down to view all of them, you’ll have to take multiple screenshots, and there would be separate photos created for them.

Capture View will not create multiple images, but will take a single long screenshot to make sure that everything in the screen view is captured in a single go. This means there’s no requirement to scroll down through the screen, and all you have to do is tap just one button.

You need to first head over to the stock Settings app to configure the tweak through the entry that says ‘Action Menu’. Make sure to toggle on the option for the jailbreak app under this heading, and when you do, you’re ready to take awesome long screenshots.

For taking a screenshot of a specific part, long-press the screen and select ‘Capture’, while you can select the
‘ScrollCapture’ option to capture everything till the end of the screen view.

Check out the demo video to see the hack in action:

It will take a while for the tweak to capture everything, and a notification will appear when the process is done. You can find the screenshots in the stock Photos app, their ideal place.

Capture View is available at Cydia’s BigBoss repository for $1. Let us know if you find it useful.

This article, How To Capture Screenshot of Entire Scrolling View in iOS, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Would you like to travel with Chin?

Rise to the highest pole with Chin Up game featuring the nimble construction worker Mr. Chin. Let’s see if this fast-pace-touch-arcade game is worth it.

What the heck?

Touch Village Inc. brings you a fast-pace arcade game dubbed Chin Up. Currently, the app has bragging rights of 4.5 stars in 90 ratings (all versions) and 4 stars in 12 ratings with the current version.

How does it work?

Basically, players must help Mr. Chin to reach the top of the construction site by balancing him on a bamboo platform in various key places around the world while avoiding some dangerous falling objects.

Once you launch the game, you’ll be greeted with a heartwarming oriental music with Mr. Chin’s up balancing himself on a bamboo platform.

The game includes in-app purchases for power-ups but you can start playing on level 1 (Wuhan) and collect some of the essential items and slots that Mr. Chin needs to reach the top without falling.

Mr. Chin is under the siege of torrential downpour of bizarre objects like construction tools, various food products such as dumplings, rice bowls, sushi; living creatures like cats, fishes, dogs, and parts of living creatures such as brains, heads and many more.

The secret to keep him from falling is to shift the bamboo from left to right, tilt it from different angles to avoid the falling objects and dispatch the debris and other items. However, Mr. Chin must also catch the essential power-ups such as sauces and shields.

And it takes skillful fingers to shift from the other side to another. Just take control of the bamboo platform, but not Mr. Chin or you’ll dump him. Get a hold of the balloons so it?ll save him from falling before he gets mad at you.

How’s the app?

Frankly, players must be focus on tilting the platform while Mr. Chin heads skyward. I must say the mechanics of the game are simple, and mostly the objects are the same in each level; they’re predictable in the long run and it lacks depth and uniqueness. It’s an entertaining game for teens and arcade enthusiasts though. You can download Chin Up for free via this direct iTunes link.

This article, App Review: Chin Up App for iPhone, iPod and iPad, was originally published at simonblog.com.

The taller screen of the sixth-generation iPhone meant that App Store and Cydia developers had to optimize their work to suit the taller screen. However, there have already been many releases in the form of tweaks that allow users to see more of the screen, with some even offering full screen mode.

FullScroll is a new jailbreak app that presents a full screen mode for any app, and it makes the title and the tool bar disappear. It has been developed and released by the popular Cydia developer Ryan Petrich.

The way users are able to switch from normal to full screen mode offered by the tweak is totally different from what has been seen in other tweaks of similar nature. The user can decide the app for full screen mode, and FullScroll can only make the title bar disappear, both the tool bar and title bar disappear or keep both of them to show the app in its normal screen mode.

The jailbreak app is going to work with both stock and third-party apps. Upon download and installing FullScroll, a new menu is going to be added to the stock Settings app. Here, the user can scroll and select any particular app for the full screen mode. The best full screen effect results by opting to hide both the title bar and tool bar.

To learn more about the hack, check out the below video:

There may be problems faced when using this tweak, such as a white space showing up when the option to make the title bar appear is selected. Users can always disable the tweak by going to Settings and selecting the standard scrolling option.

FullScroll is a free of charge download at the Cydia Store. It’s available through the BigBoss repository. Feel free to leave comments if you try it out.

This article, FullScroll Tweak Lets You View Any iOS App In Full Screen, was originally published at simonblog.com.

As you may have heard that one of the most anticipated is Velox, which had been undergoing months of development and testing by Apex Tweaks (@ApexTweaks). It supercharges supported iOS and App Store Apps with “folder-view” for notifications or app-special functionality by swiping gestures that gives users a complete fresh experience to use their iPhones. However, Velox “folders” does not work inside normal folders. You must locate the apps to Homescreen to make it functional. Velox is now available on the BigBoss Repo for $1.99.

Here we will provide you with a walk-through on the features:

Messaging notifications

By default you are able to view incoming new messages for most of the apps that support push notifications. It is great when you don’t want to open the app itself or pull down the notification center. What’s good is that it supports major Quick Reply tweaks such as BiteSMS and QR for WhatsApp. When you click on the notification in Velox folder interface it brings up the QR pop-up window. However, it works neither with QR for Facebook Messenger nor Twitkafly.

For iOS Messages, Velox also provides functions to compose new messages and setting to enable Quick Reply. However, it is still a little bit buggy since many times the window cannot be dismissed and stays on top of the Springboard and hence I need a respring to fix it. In addition, the global setting of Velox allows you to dismiss notifications by swiping to the left. However at this stage, this still does not function in real for Messages App (somehow works for BiteSMS) and the badges will still stay.

Phone and Contacts

With Velox, you are able to pull down the menu that sorts your recent calls from the Phone App. You are also able to browse and search your contacts easily as shown the picture below.

Music Control

The tweaks enables you to control your Music App with a sleek dropdown folder window, that shows the progress bar, album art, play/pause, forward. It is smooth as far as I have tried.

I personally use third party music app called KKBOX for music. Velox partially supports it in which I am not able to scrub to particular position of a song. However, the play, pause and skip all work fine.

Calendar, Reminders and Notes

Velox pulls up recent 30 days of your calender items from iOS Calendar App. When you tap on specific items it will bring you directly to that calender event. It also brings up the list from the iOS Reminders App. Upon tapping it simply opens up the App itself.

Furthermore, it brings up the Notes App interface that allows you to. If you find the function helpful for you, please make sure you put the Notes App in the first two rows of Home Screeen so that the keyboard will not block you from editing more row of notes.

Photography

One of the most amazing features is about photos and videos. The Velox folder view integrates with your camera and you are able to take pictures and even videos easily with the window without physically starting the Camera App. You can also use all the functions of the default camera app such as flash and HDR toggles.

Velox also integrates with Photos App. You can easily tweet, upload to Facebook, email or copy your last taken photos in your camera roll.

Web browsing, Social Media, Maps and Weather

Velox opens up a web browsing window that you can open web pages by typing address. You can go forward and backwards as well.

This feature also applies to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube App that allows you to assess and login to their mobile sites. It is fully functional as what you can do in Safari.

For Apple Maps, Velox will prompt a message requesting location services to be turned on so that the little browser could locate where you are on the map.

Comparing with the above features, I like the Weather one even more. Just like what is showing below, it saves me much time to pull down the notification center and reach the weather forecast. And of course, much faster than opening an app.

These features also work well with most popular third-party apps, namely Google Chrome, Google Maps, Tweetbot, Yahoo! Weather, as you may have seen from the above screenshots.

Settings, Cydia and iFile

Another most appreciated feature is adding toggles in the folder of Settings App. Supported toggles at this moment in sequence will be DND, Wifi, LED Flash, Rotation lock, Respring, Data network, Mute, Location, Bluetooth and Airplane Mode.

For Cydia, the Velox folder looks like the Reminder one. it pulls the feeds directly from cydiaupdates.net so that you are able to see any new or updated package at a quick glance.

You can also browse your root directories easily by swiping on iFile. When you tab on specific files in the explorer view, it will take you to iFile directly and opens up the menu, just like what you originally do and see inside iFile.

Velox Customization

In the Preference session of Velox, as mentioned above, you are able to enable or disable bundled QR for messages. In addition, you can change the swiping gesture to your most convenient way.

One big feature is “Always NC folder for app” that allows you to control Velox behavior over each app – whether to show Velox functions or notification folder. Say, by default it pulls up a web browse for Facebook but once you enable it, Velox will make NC view as default.

The developer has also included detailed How-to to get user familiarized with all the features. If you are new to this I would recommend you take a look at it.

FolderEnhancer and Infinifolders

I believe many of you use the captioned tweake to expand your folder capacity. With recent updates for FolderEnhancer (v.1.9.8.1-1) and Velox (v1.0.1-1), both of them enhanced compatibility with each other, as well as for Infinifolders, which I believe fixed quite a number of crash bugs.

In order to make sure you don’t get default FolderEnhancer style folder view, as mentioned in a recent tweet from @ApexTweaks, you will need to disable “Enhance Special Folders” option to make things work as what Velox should look like. If you have it enabled, the folder will look weird and you will need to press the home key to dismiss it.

Incompatibility with Shrink

This was confirmed by the developer in this tweet. If you have Shrink installed like I did, you will find Velox folders shifting a bit like below. I also got more crashes with Shrink and More Icons installed with Velox. Just beware of this when you also do.

Recent add-ons

To make the experience of Velox even more fruiful, the jailbreak commnuity has been actively developing add-ons and themes.

CARROX by HASHBANG Production (@hbangws) offers Carrot with Velox features like Reminder App. The only difference is that it will not take you to the Carrot App when you click on the to-do items. The tweak is available on the BigBoss repo for free and requires App Store App Carrot which costs you 99 cents.

Stopwatch for Velox by Max Katzmann (@max_katzmann) tells what it does with its straightforward name. It enhances the iOS clock app which does not have any specific feature from Velox by giving it the stop-watch add on function. You could start, pause and reset. Once the folder view dismisses, the record will also be gone.

Velox Derailed Theme by ViNiT (left) and 4 Velox by Sk37cH (right) are two WinterBoard themes that change the outlook of Velox features such as Settings toggle icons and Music App folder. There could be more designers will be releasing more themes for Velox along with their themes or a standalone one. If you want to have this theme now, you can download both of them for free from the Modmyi Repo.

In a nutshell, Velox is a very robust and comprehensive tweak that highly enriches your experience in using your lovely jailbroken iPhone. For me, it is definitely a must. If you feel the same, head over to BigBoss repo now and get a copy of it.

This article, Supercharge Your iPhone Home Screen Apps with Velox, was originally published at simonblog.com.

The iPhone is a great tool for doing a lot of things, such as browsing the internet, reading the mail, playing awesome games and taking pictures. Speaking of pictures, if you enjoy capturing every moment of your surroundings, then why not make earn something in return?

Sure, posting them on Facebook will probably get a lot of likes and comments but did you know that you can actually make a lot of money by selling them? If you convert your image into a stock photo you can greatly boost your incomes.

If you own an iPhone, then you should definitely try Clashot, a gorgeous free app which allows you to take photos, edit them and then submit your preferred images to photo marketplace. You can find it here:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/clashot/id572266787

After downloading and installing the app you’ll need to set up an account and then you are done.

The app works extremely simple: you take some photos with your iPhone or upload them into your phone and you submit them into their Photobank. Don’t forget that creativity matters so the better the pictures, the higher the chances to being noticed. Also, when you upload an image it will instantly become visible to the entire community so that’s a great opportunity to receive ratings, comments and suggestions by your friends or any other member.

Every time your images are purchased you will receive a 44% commission from the actual payment so you can imagine that if you have a couple of dozen pictures uploaded to the marketplace, you could earn a lot of money. Transferring your founds is easy because you only need a PayPal or WebMoney account but note that any withdraw takes up to 7 days, so scheduled them wisely.

What I love the most about this idea is that Clashot is not only a great marketplace from which you can earn money but also a great community with people from around the world from which you can learn a lot of tips and tricks.

Clashot.com is the main website of this application so head over if you want to find out more information.

What I love the most:
* A huge network of photographers
* Making money with your pictures
* Easy to use interface

What I don’t like:
* A little bit laggy on iPhone 4 (yeah I know that this is an old phone)
* I couldn’t find a way to remove some unconstructive critics from my images.

Overall I believe that Clashot is an interesting application which helps even an amateur photographer to earn money with his images.

This article, Shoot Photos With Your iPhone And Earn Money Using Clashot, was originally published at simonblog.com.

I always use “Do Not Disturb” mode on your iPhone during meeting, working hours, or sleeping time. Many times I toggle it in SBSettings, Auxo, Velox or even in iOS Setting, whichever comes to my mind first. However, if you find two tabbing or swipes yet too many for you, here comes Luna – a new jailbreak tweak that just comes out today co-created by well-known hacker and developer Ryan Petrich (@rpetrich) and designer Sentry_NC (@Sentry_NC), where you can achieve this with one finger gesture.

Luna allows you to toggle “Do Not Disturb” in both your lockscreen and notification center. In the lockscreen, by simply pull and release at the clock you will be able to see DND mode enable or disable.

In the Notification Center, do the same to pull and release your NC to let the toggle take effect. In the meantime, don’t forget to enjoy the sleek and smooth animation of the new moon icon which is really well constructed and appealing to me.

One special note for LockInfo users is that Luna will override your NC pull-to-refresh function.

A few hours after the initial release, Luna received an update version 1.0.1 fixing LockInfo support and adding hide VIP star in nocturnal notification banners.

Overall, Luna gives you a handy option to toggle Do Not Disturb Mode. It is also well built that it does not have much compatiblity issue with other tweaks as far as I have been using. If you want try it out, head out to BigBoss Repo repo and download it with a price at $1.99.

This article, Luna Brings “Do Not Disturb” Shortcut to Lock Screen and Notification Center, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Well it’s that time of the week again here when we share the Top Free Cydia Tweaks released over the past week. We hope you enjoy these five free tweaks and find at least one you can use regularly.

1. LSMusicSeek

This tweak allows you to scrub through the song much faster. It’s added on the lockscreen in place of the volume slider. Simply double tap the home button to activate LSMusicSeek Cydia Tweak. It?s available in the ModMyi Repo for free.

2. Yahoo Weather is Better

It reroutes the weather through Yahoo. Users may also reroute the stock app by using this tweak also. Yahoo Weather is Better users may also turn on/off the Y! icon inside the settings menu of this tweak. It’s available for Free in BigBoss Repo.

3. Define

Define adds a search bar in the notification center where users may search for the definition of words by typing them into the search bar. It’s available for Free in ModMyi Repo. This tweak can be useful for many different situations.

4. TapTweetPlus

TapTweetPlus allows users to tweet what music they are listening to with only a tap of the screen. It adds the song name and hashtags as well. Users may choose to tweet the artwork or not inside the settings of the tweak. Its available for free in the BigBoss Repo.

5. QuickCompose

This tweak allows users to email, message, and tweet directly from inside the notification center. It adds three different buttons inside the NC which shows, “tap to tweet”, “tap to email”, or “tap to message”. It’s a very simple and fast way to accomplish these task. QuickCompose is available inside the BigBoss Repo for Free.

To learn more about these five cydia hacks, check out the below video:

These are Five Free Cydia Tweaks which we felt users could get some use from regularly. Be sure to visit us each week for the Top cydia Tweaks released. Watch the video below for a look at each of these tweaks. We encourage all our readers to share this content socially.

This article, Top 5 Cydia Hacks of The Week, was originally published at simonblog.com.

If you are looking for some different experience to unlock your iPhone, then you should check out a new tweak that comes out a couple of days ago called Piano Passcode by Johnathan Winger Lang (@jontelang).

What Piano Passcode basically does is it replaces your current default iOS passcode keypad with a piano-alike one. It contains seven “notes” from musical scale “do” to “ti”. The idea of the tweak is completely genuine as far as I have seen and it is beautiful in both visual and audio senses.

You are able to set your passcode with a desired melody with seven notes within the scale. You can set this melody with one to seven notes in total. If you set more than that seven, you will not be able to unlock you phone with the piano. But before all these setting, the developer reminds in the app setting menu that you need to disable your passcode code.

Upon unlocking and with mute off, you will be able to hear the piano sound of the note when you press. Certainly, no matter you are a pianist, music lover or neither, you are going to appealed by this concept and design of tweak itself.

Importantly, the tweak works pretty well with quite a number of popular unlock tweaks, namely atom, JellyLock (Beta), Grabby, etc. The animation of keyboard pop-up and key pressings is smooth. It is also compatible with other lockscreen tweaks and those with lockscreen functions, such as Abstergo, ISX, LockInfo 5, SubtleLock, etc.

Another good thing that I really love is, unlike traditional numerical passcode methods, this tweak allows you to try unlimited times until you successfully typed the correct sequence of codes, or say, notes.

However, there are a few things that could possibly be improved in future updates.

Firstly, it seems to me that not every part of the graphics is retina-ready. The most obvious is the black keys. Maybe it is a design from the developer to make it a little bit blurry but it does not look good to me.

Secondly and quite important to me, the piano audio suppresses the music that is currently playing on your device and the music will not resume itself.

Further, it is not handy that for every change you make, for instance changing the “melody”, enabling or disabling the tweak, you will need to respring to let it take effect.

Overall, I think this is a good tweak with potential to be better. It takes me to another level of enjoyment to unlock my iPhone with style, which are no longer fancy animations but peaceful short music.

If you want to give it a try, Piano Passcode is now available on the BigBoss repo for 99 cents.

This article, Beautify Your iPhone Unlock Screen with Piano Passcode, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Though the stock Music app on iOS presents a lot of features, some users just want to get it going right away without having to launch the app manually. If you’re one of them, you may’ve gone through some tweaks and apps that bring music controls for the library on the lock screen.

While there are different toggles available such as the ability to play, rewind and forward tracks, there’s no seek bar present, which means you have to launch the native music app if you want to get to a certain point in the track, which makes the toggles on the screen unimportant. However, LSScrubbing is a new jailbreak tweak that aims to fulfill by the gap as it’s add a seek bar to the toggles present for music on the lock screen.

The tweak is really simple, so you won’t find any separate Settings menu or an icon on the Springboard after downloading it. The new scrubbing bar that makes way on the lock screen is placed above the volume slider and below the volume controls. It isn’t fancy as the volume slider, which is in silver, while the scrubbing bar’s UI seems to be out of the book of an old iOS firmware.

Apart from letting you get ahead to a favorite part in the track, this jailbreak app also presents time indicators at the left and right of the new added bar. The right figure shows how much time is left before the track ends while the figure at the left shows how much time have passed since the start of the track.

This tweak is only compatible with the native music app, and doesn’t work with third-party ones. This is perhaps the only limitation.

For those who want to go ahead and try it out, LSScrubbing is a $1.99 download at the Cydia Store and is available through the BigBoss repository. Let us know if you give it a try.

This article, How To Scrub Music Right From Lock Screen, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Though there aren’t a lot of problems with native iOS apps, with most of them providing feature-rich options for users, the stock Photos hasn’t gone down well when it comes to importing albums from iTunes, deleting them or their photos during iTunes sync.

Face it, you don’t love connecting the device to the computer and sync your device with iTunes just to delete a few photos, and it’s time consuming as well. Luckily, there’s a solution coming from the Cydia Store in the form of iMageSynced Remover.

After downloading and installing the tweak, there aren’t any complicate configuration steps. There will be a new menu added in the stock Settings app, and there will be only one toggle in that menu. Through that toggle, you will be able to either enable or disable the tweak.

The toggle can be turned off if you’re not using the device, which will prevent others using your devices form deleting photos using the tweak.

By turning on the toggle, the tweak will give you the ability to delete photos from albums, just like you have the ability to delete any photos from the camera roll or the local album.

There’s an ‘Edit’ mode available, which you can enter to select the photos and remove them through the ‘Delete’ option. However, there’s no gesture or option to delete all photos in the album at a single time. This means you have to select photos and delete them manually, which is at least better than connecting the device to the computer or sync the device with iTunes for a mere removable.

iMageSynced Remover is a free of charge download at the Cydia Store. You can find it through the BigBoss repository. Let us know if you try it out.

This article, iMageSynced Remover: Delete Photos From Albums Without iTunes Sync, was originally published at simonblog.com.

There are many apps and tweaks that give insights on the battery of iPhone, but the new release at the Cydia Store BatteryDoctorPro has the potential to be the most useful and feature-rich so far. It comes from a developer who has released an Android app as well, but for iOS, he brought it for jailbroken iPhones.

This jailbreak app brings widgets both the Springboard and the Notification Center. There are other features as well, which may not have been present if the tweak was released through the App Store.

After downloading and installing the tweak, you’ll see that widgets will be added to different areas automatically. Tapping the battery icon on the homescreen or Notification Center will bring the widget in action. Long pressing on app icons will allow you to close any app. There’s also a RAM indicator placed at the top right of the screen, which can be used to close all apps in a single time.

You would be able to create new profiles and learn from the default ones on how you can optimize the battery life of your iPhone. You can switch to ‘Outdoor’ to use mobile data, because when there’s not an active Wi-Fi connection around, it’s better to leave the Wi-Fi option inactive.

There are several toggles such as Bluetooth, 3G, Wi-Fi, connection of data etc. The ‘BadeClear’ toggle can be used to dismiss icon badges, while you can also control the camera flash of your phone through the flashlight toggle.

The tweak will also let you monitor what apps use how much RAM, memory, space, cycle values etc. The Manager will keep clearing caches from third party and native apps, while you can use the Settings menu to define notifications and battery life alerts.

With so many features offered, you would be thinking BatteryDoctorPro would cost something, but it’s completely free to download. It’s available at Cydia’s BigBoss repository. Do let us know if you try it out.

This article, BatteryDoctorPro: All You Need To Optimize iPhone Battery, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Apple made the Notification Center more useful than ever with the release of iOS 6. App and Cydia developers haven?t been short of releasing apps and tweaks to further enhance its functionality, with music widgets for the Notification Center being released now and then. They?re given a lot of control to iOS users for accessing music directly from NC, but NCMusicGestures goes one step further and brings swipe gestures for controlling music.

After downloading and installing this tweak, a new menu is going to appear in the stock Settings app, but for the section of Notifications. As this jailbreak app is a widget, it has two different portions.

The upper half contains the slide bar from where, the track can be moved on to different points. Swiping across the bar also brings up the sharing options of the tweak. From here, a donation can be made to the developer, while the information of the track can be shared on Twitter and Facebook as well. The bottom half shows the information of the song as well as the album art.

There are other features which the user may not be aware are available. For example, any track can be paused directly from the Notification Center by a single tap on the album art. Swiping right on the album art will let the user to move ahead to the next track, while a left swipe can be used to go back to the previous track.

The only limitation is that only tracks played from the native music app are compatible. You can check out the video demo to see it in action:

For those who are fans of the Notification Center as well as gesture control, and love music, NCMusicGestures is worth a try. It?s a free download at the Cydia Store and is available through the BigBoss repository. Let us know if you try it out.

This article, NCMusicGestures Lets You Control Music From Notification Center, was originally published at simonblog.com.

There are several tweaks and apps available for iOS that give out notification reminders. Usually, the allow users to clear notifications once they’ve been seen. Abstergo is a new jailbreak app that does the same, but offers something else as well.

With this tweak, users are able to clear the notifications directly from the lockscreen apart from the Notification Center. It also brings the Remind Me Later option, which means any notification can be reminded of later as well. Furthermore, incoming text messages can be converted into reminders as well.

The clearing of notifications is done through gestures, and a ‘clear’ button is going to appear for any notification when the user swipes across it. Now all notifications don’t have to be cleared as in the usual case, as this tweak allows for dismissing of individual notifications.

However, that doesn’t mean all notifications can’t be dismissed at a single time; there’s a gesture for that too. A downward swipe on the lockscreen is going to serve the purpose.

The tweak also brings a new option for the stock Settings app, and hovering over any SMS presents a new ‘remind’ option, which can be selected to display any text as a reminder later on.

Apart from texts, the notifications can be used as reminders as well. The menu of ‘Remind Me In’ shows up after the user performs a long-press on the lockscreen or NC notifications. The new menu has several options, such as to remind the user in 5, 10, 15 minutes or at a particular day and time.

After the selection, till the time and date you set, the NC center will have the notifications attached, but they can always be dismissed.

Abstergo is available at the Cydia Store through the BigBoss repository. The tweak is priced at $1.99. Let us know if you give it a shot.

This article, Abstergo Cydia Hack Turns Texts and Notifications Into Reminders, was originally published at simonblog.com.

We enjoy sharing all the top Cydia Tweaks with our readers daily. Starting from last week, we start to compile a list of cydia hacks and show you the top hacks of the week. We hope you enjoy and find them useful. This week, we’ll continue to show some great cydia hacks including Atom, NotesTweak, Abstergo and Prime. Read on to learn more.

1. Atom

Atom is a newly released Cydia tweak available in BigBoss Repo for $1.99. It’s compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 6.x or later. It adds six different icons to the lockscreen which can be preselected by the user to be any application of the device both native and 3rd part apps can be added.

The lockscreen is the first thing users see when unlocking their devices. It only makes sense to add these cool features and change the look of the lockscreen. It’s the quickest way possible to get to an application besides using button gesture. Either way the developers of Atom have done an awesome job developing this tweak. This is one of the smoothest and most elegant tweaks we have had released in the jailbreak community.

2. NotesTweak

NotesTweak gives users more control and features in the notes app. Users can favorite notes which will move them to the top of the list. It also allows users to save notes to the springboard for fast location. NotesTweak can be linked to dropbox for saving notes longterm without cluttering up the iOS device or take up storage space. NotesTweak is available in BigBoss Repo for $1.99. It’s one of our favorite tweaks for sure. Don’t be surprised when iOS 7 releases to see something similar to this tweak added.

3. Abstergo

Abstergo is a Cydia Tweak which allows users to take control of their notifications.  It’s currently available in BigBoss Repo for $1.99.  It was developed by Andrew Richardson and Josh Tucker. Users can have notifications sent at a later time should they need to. they may select the time from a preset popup in the tweak. The time frames are 5 min, 15 min., 1 hr., 1 day, and days(selected from calendar). Users may also be reminded of messages later in iMessage. This can be activated by long pressing on the message you wish to be reminded of later. Users will get a ?remind? option which they should tap and set the time same as above.

4. Prime

Prime is a simple tweak which offers much needed use for distinguishing between outgoing calls, incoming calls, and missed calls. Users will be able to distinguish the difference with only a glance. Outgoing calls are colored green, incoming missed calls are red, and incoming received calls are colored blue. This definitely makes it much easier to distinguish bewteen the different types of calls without having to check inside the phone app.

These are the top tweaks we thought users would get the most use from this week. If you feel we overlooked a tweak feel free to let us know in the comment section below. Be sure to check back each week for the Top Tweaks of the Week.

This article, Top 4 Cydia Hacks of the Week, was originally published at simonblog.com.

Android users were recently cherishing the release of Tiny Apps that made 5 app icons float on the homescreen of Android users. Well, guess what? The iOS jailbreak community isn’t letting any concepts go over the line. Lately, atom made way to the Cydia Store. This new tweak lets the user place 6 apps on the lockscreen.

What’s so good about the tweak is that the user has to apply a certain dragging gesture to make use of the shortcuts. The unlock shortcut is created at the center of app icons. This means there are no worries of launching a certain icon by mistake.

The jailbreak app places the app icons in such a way that the whole screen is occupied rather than placing them into a certain area. However, the organization it does is pretty need, and doesn’t make the lockscreen interface look cluttered.

After downloading and installing the tweak, a new menu is going to appear in the stock Settings app. The user will also notice the changes made to the lockscreen. The camera grabber and unlock slider are going to vanish, while the tweak’s own options are going to appear.

Some apps will be pinned by default, but the user always have the option to personalize the screen depending upon preferences by heading over to make changes from the stock Settings app. Both native and third-party apps can be added to the options.

Although there aren’t many options provided by the tweak, it provides a unique way for users for accessing commonly used apps as well as for unlocking. The appearance is noticeable as well.

Check out this video to see it in action:

Atom is a free of charge download from Cydia’s BigBoss repository. Let us know if you give it a try and feel free to leave comments.

This article, Atom Tweak Allows You To Pin 6 Apps On iOS Lockscreen, was originally published at simonblog.com.