"If there is an app for that"

10 iOS 10 features that appear to be derived from the jailbreak community

June 14, 2016 by macjeff

Every year, Apple updates their lineup of iOS devices with a major new firmware version. This year at WWDC 2016, Apple announced iOS 10, and it not only includes an array of new features for users to take advantage of, but it also comes with some subtle UI changes that will be easy to spot in day-to-day use as well.

Of course, when Apple adds new features to iOS, sometimes those features aren’t 100% original. Sometimes, they’ve existed in the jailbreak community for a long time in one form or another.

In this roundup, we’ll go over 10 features in iOS 10 that appear to be derived from jailbreak tweaks and have already existed for those who have been pwning their devices to get around what Apple doesn’t want you to have.

10 things iOS 10 has that jailbreakers have had

Not all of these are going to be apples to Apple comparisons, because ideas vary from one designer to the next, but it would seem that there are obvious similarities in may of the features we’re about to share with you. Please keep an open mind.

1. Third-party access to Siri

Siri is now open to developers to play with in iOS 10 thanks to a new API known as SiriKit. With it, App Store app developers have some, albeit limited, access to allowing the virtual voice-based assistant to perform actions related to third-party apps.

I want to point out that there have been no perfect solutions for this in the jailbreak community, but I felt it was worth noting that developers in the jailbreak community have built platforms and libraries that other developers have been able to use in the past to give Siri more capabilities.

One such example was AssistantExtensions, which was a library other jailbreak developers were able to use to provide Siri with the resources to answer new kinds of questions and queries that she was never able to before.

Apple’s involvement in this department means giving legitimate App Store developers the ability to integrate their apps, so it differs a little bit from how the jailbreak community used to make Siri smarter by giving her new query-answering abilities.

Nevertheless, it seems like Apple got the point that we’re over here in our own little community trying to make Siri a little more ‘open’ so she can do more than what Apple is willing to let her do.

2. Raise to wake

iOS 10 now allows iPhone users to wake up their device from a sleep simply by picking it up off of the table. This kind of technique means that it’s no longer required to press a button to wake your device up.

This is a feature that stock iPhone users have wanted forever, and already Android has a similar feature called Doze, which keeps the device asleep until you actually pick it up, but the jailbreak community also answered this request with a jailbreak tweak of its own, called FaceOff.

With this tweak, you could configure your device to go to sleep when you put it down and wake up when you pick it up, and it’s no doubt that Apple’s new iOS 10 feature is very similar in functionality to FaceOff, a tweak that jailbreakers have had access to for years.

3. Using stickers in the Messages app

The all-new Messages app features are among some of the most anticipated changes in Apple’s upcoming iOS 10 operating system, and iMessage has been given a slew of new features tailored specifically for iOS users.

One of those that seems to stand out the most is the ability to use Stickers in iMessage, which is something that we’ve been given the ability to do in Facebook Messenger for years.

For whatever reason, Apple took a white to implement these into the stock iMessage experience, probably because they were busy adding those all-new Emojis to iOS 9, but the jailbreak community once again already had an answer to this disgrace.

Using a jailbreak tweak called StickerMe, jailbreakers were able to send Facebook Messenger stickers right through iMessage to the recipient, and the recipient didn’t even need to be jailbroken to receive them.

4. Modular Control Center pages

iOS 10 appears to bring a new dynamic to Control Center. Rather than having just one page with everything crammed into one interface, Apple seems to have made things a little more modular by providing pages that you can swipe between.

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was Auxo Legacy Edition, which was more-so an App Switcher tweak than a Control Center tweak, but it still integrated the App Switcher with Control Center and one of the features I remember was being able to swipe between the controls section of Control Center and the music section of Control Center.

The implementation looks a little different, but it has the same idea in mind. Overall, it doesn’t integrate the App Switcher into Control Center like Auxo Legacy Edition does, but you still get that page-to-page Control Center feeling in iOS 10 that you did with Auxo Legacy Edition.

5. Interactive notifications

One of the major features listed on Apple’s website for iOS 10 is Interactive Notifications, which allows you to access much more data from a notification on the Lock screen than you’ve ever been able to in any previous release of iOS.

As soon as I saw the look and feel of the interface Apple makes, which seems to use a Messages conversation as an example, it immediately reminded me of 3D Touch Notifications.

Although I’m unsure if the Interactive Notifications in iOS 10 actually use 3D Touch for viewing purposes like the jailbreak tweak does, the interface that Apple uses to let you see more of the Messages conversation you’re replying to from the Lock screen looks almost identical to the 3D Touch Notifications tweak interface.

Whether or not they function the same way is another question entirely, but the design hints at a largely-borrowed idea that was implemented in the jailbreak community first.

6. 3D Touch for the Weather app

iOS 10 is officially letting you use 3D Touch on the Weather app’s icon from the Home screen to see the weather conditions from your specific location. You no longer have to tap on an option from a list and launch the Weather app to see the weather conditions outside.

This is an idea that existed already in jailbreak tweak form; the tweak was dubbed Shortcuts, and while we don’t have a review live on iDB about this particular tweak, it did allow those of you with jailbroken devices to 3D Touch on the Weather app icon and see the current weather conditions in your area without having to launch the Weather app outright.

Since 3D Touch is very much a young feature that only just came out last year amid a rushed iOS update, it was clear that Apple didn’t have a whole lot of time to refine features for 3D Touch, but with iOS 10, Apple is not only stepping up their game with new 3D Touch functions, but also appears to have borrowed from the jailbreak community in doing so.

Overall, Apple’s implementation looks a little nicer, but still, the idea was created far before Apple ever got to it.

7. New look and feel for Apple Music

Apple gave Apple Music a new look and feel in iOS 10, giving it a more impressive interface for music discovery and overall aesthetic, but man… it sure is hard to give Apple all the credit because jailbreakers have been modifying the look and feel of Apple Music since iOS 8.4!

With a jailbreak tweak called Gauss 2, you could give the Apple Music app on your jailbroken iPhone a complete makeover with new blur effects, text color changes, tinting changes, saturation, and much more.

Now I understand that this is more of a low blow, since Apple would have updated the Apple Music interface at some point in the future regardless, but it does go to show that the jailbreak community always seems to be one step ahead of Apple in allowing users to have something that looks and feels different.

8. ‘Write’ your messages instead of typing them

Another major new feature of iOS 10 that you’ll find in the Messages app that seems to be derived from the jailbreak community is the ability to write your own messages via iMessage, rather than typing them out with a keyboard.

The feature allows iMessage users to literally send their own handwriting to another person, rather than typed font, but a jailbreak tweak commonly known as Grafiti allowed jailbreakers to do this for a very long time until the developer eventually stopped supporting the tweak in the latest versions of iOS.

Nevertheless, the idea existed years before Apple ever took the time to implement it, and Grafiti not only allowed you to send handwritten text to a person, but fully-drawn doodles. Moreover, you could even send them in a variety of colors.

Apple’s implementation in iOS 10 isn’t a joke, however. Apple spent a lot of time to make the animations nice and to make it seamless with the iOS keyboard in the Messages app, so those reading your messages will get to see you writing it in real time, or at least a recorded instance of you writing in real time.

9. Removing stock apps from the Home screen

Apple has long littered the Home screen’s limited space with tons of apps that you may or may not use, and when it comes to those apps that you know you’re never going to want, such as Tips, you’ve probably always wished you could just deleted them, only to find that you needed to push them off into a folder somewhere on your Home screen just to hide it.

The jailbreak community has solved this problem for a very long time, by providing jailbreak tweaks that allow you to hide apps from the Home screen for years, such as Springtomize.

Although the solution hasn’t been to outright delete the apps, it did provide a way to hide the app icons without just putting them into a folder on your Home screen that you’re still going to have to look at on a daily basis.

Apple’s new solution, however, is much cleaner, as it lets you remove certain pre-installed apps that you know you’ll never use and actually saves storage on your device. If at any time you wanted to put them back, you’d have to reinstall those apps you deleted from the App Store.

10. Lock screen widgets

This is a big one, and it has set iOS apart from Android and various other platforms for years. Apple is finally introducing the ability to have widgets on your iPhone’s Lock screen and they’re accessed by swiping from left to right on your Lock screen.

Even though this is a feature that other platforms have had for years, that’s not to say that the jailbreak community hasn’t attempted to make the feature available for those with pwned devices in the past. Actually, they’ve been doing it for years, and there have been a slew of jailbreak tweaks for it, but by far one of the most popular was IntelliScreenX.

Although the focus of IntelliScreenX was very different, and Apple appears to be taking widgets into an entirely different direction with one for Maps, Stocks, and Weather, IntelliScreenX allowed you to have a wide variety of information available right on your Lock screen (as well as Notification Center).

Apple’s widget platform may or may not take off, however as it would seem from their attempt to push Notification Center widgets, Apple’s restrictive rules on what you can and cannot do for App Store apps seems to be hindering a lot of productive releases that users may actually enjoy using and I don’t see it being any different for the Lock screen, which is a possible place for potential security hazards.

Wrapping up

Jailbreaking has long been a fun way to get more and more out of your device, but as Apple adds more and more of these incredible features, it seems to make jailbreaking more of a novelty.

Of course, there are still plenty of things you can do with a jailbroken device that you can’t do with a stock one, the fact that we haven’t yet seen a jailbreak for most of Apple’s latest iOS releases shows that the jailbreak community is almost certainly slowing down as Apple continues to personally fill the voids that jailbreakers have complained about for years.

I’d also like to give a shout out to two iOS jailbreak tweak developers, Evan Coleman and Raviraj for providing some important screenshots from their personal beta devices that helped make this post possible.

Did we miss something? Share what else iOS 10 has borrowed from the jailbreak community in the comments below!

Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/14/ios-10-jailbreak-features/

Free Apps to Download TODAY ONLY 06/14/2016

June 14, 2016 by macjeff

English Spanish Dictionary - Unabridged , Wordid , MemoCal mini and more

iPhone:

Wordid ( $0.99 → FREE )

Wordid is simple, casual fun. In each game you’re provided with 45 seconds and a jumble of letters. You must drag and drop the letters into the spaces at the top in order to create valid four-letter words as quickly as possible. Each valid word will earn you points, stickers, and additional time on the clock. You’ll also be provided with a new set of letters. Keep the game going for as long as you can to climb the leaderboards.

MemoCal mini ( $0.99 → FREE )

Tap on any day on the calendar to expand the cell. You’ll then be provided with a collection of tools which will allow you to create a personalized entry. You’re able to scribble with different colors and pen sizes, utilize 100 different icons, attached photos, and change the background of the cell. The app also allows you to export cells and share them.

9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek (Full) ( $4.99 → FREE )

You like strange? Well, if the title of the game hasn’t clued you in, this is one freaky adventure game. As the story goes, your dear friend has traveled to a coastal town to do a report on the Serpent Festival but mysteriously goes missing. Her last form of contact was a call to you, a private paranormal investigator. You must roam the streets littered with snakes and odd happenings to solve the riddle. The game includes 53 locations to search through, 13 puzzles and mini-games, and six strange characters to interact with.

Universal:

English Spanish Dictionary - Unabridged ( $24.99 → FREE )

English-Spanish Reference Dictionary is remarkably easy to use. You’re able to enter a word in English or Spanish, and it will instantly provide you with a translation, pronunciation, definitions, and example phrases. Words can be marked as favorites for quick access later on, and all of your data can be synced with Dropbox. The app includes a ridiculous amount of content with over 1,299,000 entries, 2,284,000 translations, 3,221,000 synonyms, 814,000 antonyms, 196,000 definitions, 146,000 quotes, 66,00 images, and 96,000 examples.

Easy Spending Expense Tracker - Manage expenses, Control Spending ( $2.99 → FREE )

Most finance apps are all cluttered up with unnecessary options and data, but not Easy Spending Expense Tracker. The app’s home screen only displays your current account balance and two buttons: Add Income and Add Expense. When adding income or an expense, you simply have to define an amount and choose a category. The amount will automatically be added to or subtracted from your total. You’re able to look back through your transaction history, and create reports from all of the data.

9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek HD (Full) ( $6.99 → FREE )

You like strange? Well, if the title of the game hasn’t clued you in, this is one freaky adventure game. As the story goes, your dear friend has traveled to a coastal town to do a report on the Serpent Festival but mysteriously goes missing. Her last form of contact was a call to you, a private paranormal investigator. You must roam the streets littered with snakes and odd happenings to solve the riddle. The game includes 53 locations to search through, 13 puzzles and mini-games, and six strange characters to interact with.

MemoCal Plus ( $3.99 → FREE )

Tap on any day on the calendar to expand the cell. You’ll then be provided with a collection of tools which will allow you to create a personalized entry. You’re able to scribble with different colors and pen sizes, utilize 100 different icons, attached photos, and change the background of the cell. The app also allows you to export cells and share them.

Source link: http://appadvice.com/apps-gone-free

Retake the World with Crab War

June 14, 2016 by macjeff

Crab War offers gamers a cool new challenge that goes beyond just winning a battle.

In this fun game by AppXplore Sdn Bhd you must also successfully evolve your crab army in order to take revenge on a hoard of evil reptiles.

Designed to let players really take control of their armies, Crab War is a tantalizing twist on a common concept in app gaming.

Features:

As suggested by the app’s name, Crab War is a game featuring a battle of crabs. Specifically, your role in this app is to raise up an army of crustaceans to fight back against their evil reptilian conquerors.

Your control of your crab army is very much within your hands, as it is up to you to choose what line of crab warriors they might evolve into. Successful battles lead to collection of rewards as you advance through the game.

However, my main complaint about Crab War would have to be some lag time I experienced with the app, both during loading of the app and actual gameplay itself.

While this lag didn’t have any serious consequences on my chances of successful gameplay, it did really limit my excitement about the app. The lag was significant enough to tempt me to just not play the game at times, and this problem could definitely negatively affect the appeal of Crab War.

Appearance and Layout:

Crab War boasts of having great graphics for a game of its type, and I’d have to say that I agree.

The color scheme of the app is bright and cheery, a fun twist to the battling theme throughout the game.

Characters of evolving crab lines are decently detailed, and it’s obvious that the app’s designers were intentional in making sure that each crab was unique in its appearance.

I also appreciated the impressive number of crab evolution options you could direct each crab line through.

In-app layout could definitely use some improvement, however, as I felt that the layout was not intuitive. Because of this, getting used to finding your way around the app takes more time than ideal

Value:

Crab War is a free app, with optional in-app purchases. These purchases are not necessary for finding success in the app, but they do probably help speed up your progress through the game.

Overall, Crab War is a different kind of game that’s fun, has a well written storyline, solid graphics and well worth checking out.

While the occasional in-app lag can be a turn-off, we expect the developers to quickly address this and those who stick through with Crab War will benefit from its fun storyline and gameplay.

Crab War requires iOS 7.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Swift Playgrounds: Apple’s new iPad app to teach you how to code

June 13, 2016 by macjeff

In wrapping up Apple’s WWDC keynote this morning, Tim Cook announced a new iPad app called Swift Playgrounds for teaching people how to code. Cook specifically says “the best way to teach everyone to code,” but it definitely looks like it was built with kids in mind.

The app looks a lot like other learn-to-code apps (Hopscotch!), but it’s cool that Apple is using its scale to get such a tool into the hands of more people. The company says the app “combines the powerful Swift programming language and the powerful capabilities of iPad.”

Updating…

Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/13/swift-playgrounds-wwdc-2016/

iOS 10’s Phone app gains Voicemail Transcriptions, Spam Alerts, VoIP support (UPDATED)

June 13, 2016 by macjeff

  iOS 10 was shown off at WWDC 2016 on Monday, and with all of the new features Apple brought to the table, the Phone app is certainly one of the spotlights that deserves attention. Apple’s new Phone app in iOS 10 is going to get a lot of useful new features to make using the phone aspect of your iPhone a whole lot better.  

A new Phone experience for iPhone?

Starting with improvements to voicemail, the Phone app in iOS 10 will now convert any voicemail you receive into a readable text that you can read rather than listen to out loud. This will come in handy when you’re somewhere where the background noise is just too loud and you can’t hear your voicemail. The Phone app also improves the experience with incoming calls, because when you receive a phone call from an unknown phone number, iOS can automatically tell you whether or not the call is likely to be a spam call. Since unknown number phone calls are often annoying, it’s good to be able to know which ones are legitimate and which ones are probably just solicitors or scammers who are trying to waste your time or win you over. Spam alerts will show right underneath the unknown phone number on the Lock screen when an incoming phone call is happening in real time.

Support for VoIP via API

Apple is also allowing third-party developers who make VoIP apps for the App Store to integrate with the Phone app so that calling notifications from those third-party apps actually fill the screen, rather than appearing as a useless Lock screen notification.   As a result, you can actually take calls from those VoIP apps from the Lock screen just like they were native phone calls. A slide to answer bar will appear at the bottom of the screen just like a phone call would, and the call will route through to the third-party app’s VoIP services. This will work for various services, such as WhatsApp, but it’s not yet known what app developers are likely to take advantage of this. It would be nice to see Viber, Skype, and Facebook Messenger take advantage of this in the future.

Wrapping up

Since the Phone app is one of the most important parts of using an iPhone rather than an iPod touch or iPad, these are notable new features that will change the Phone app experience for Apple’s smartphone platform for a long time to come. What are your favorite new features for the Phone app in iOS 10? Share in the comments! Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/06/13/ios-10s-phone-app-gains-voicemail-transcriptions-spam-alerts-voip-support/