Wave Alarm For iOS: Use Motion Gestures To Silence Or Snooze Alarms – Download Now

Of all the essential everyday uses our smartphones give us, the simplest – and perhaps, the most vital – is the alarm clock.
The App store is trawling with various alarm clock apps, most of which don’t bring anything new to the table. There are the rather pleasant "night stand" apps, which give a nice warm glow to a dark room, as well as those which present a collage of beautiful images and backdrops blended into one another. One can get alarm clocks with RSS feeds, weather, and news updates all on standby ready to ease those AM blues, but there’s always room for improvement.

Wave Alarm by Augmented Minds changes the game a little – bringing a trump card over rivaling alarm clock apps. Unlike alternatives, which usually require you to slide in order to stop your alarm, Wave Alarm incorporates Motion Control technology, and as the name entails, you simply wave off your device in order to silence or snooze the alarm.
The description on the App Store states:

Utilizing Motion Control and detection, you never need to touch your phone again in the morning to turn off the alarm or to snooze, just wave your hand over the device when the alarm is sounding, and Wave Alarm will snooze or silence the alarm for you!

It’s an interesting take on just which type of alarm works best, although one suspects a wave is a rather easy way to fob your alarm off, before falling back to sleep. I’m inclined to think that the Math Alarm Cydia tweak is a more appropriate way to wake up – prompting the serial sleeper to solve a minor math problem before the noise can be stopped.

As well as the motion alarm, it’s also possible to have a normal alarm, and music from the device’s library can be used as the wake-up melody. As is the case with all iOS alarm apps (aside from stock), multitasking limitations mean Wave Alarm must be running in the foreground for it to work fully.
It works on all iDevices with front-facing cameras (required for motion detection). It’s free to download and try, but the full version costs $1.99 via in-app purchase.

Download Wave Alarm – Motion Control Alarm Clock for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch [App Store link]
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

RPon CardSwitcher Updated To v2.0 With Support For iOS 5 And iPad, New Features, And More

If you ever decided to take the time to sit and sift through the hundreds and thousands of packages that live within the default repositories in Cydia, I would imagine you would need to set aside a fair portion of your week in order to get through them all. With that said, even if you managed to sort through the packages, you only come out with a handful of tweaks or extensions that would be classed as essential installations for your jailbroken iOS device.
My own personal Cydia account is rammed full of purchases that I have made in the last few years, with the majority of the purchases being small tweaks designed to alter a tiny part of iOS, or something that I just thought looked good at that time. After using the extensions for a few days, the truth is that most of the purchases haven’t been used since and although they are available for me to download; I choose not to as they are what I would class as flash in the pan tweaks. Opinions may differ on this topic, but I tend to find that for my uses, only a handful of Cydia-based packages would fall under the essential category.

A tweak known as CardSwitcher has been around for quite some time, has received a lot of attention and may be familiar to some of you. Due to the fact it kind of offers the same functionality as the Multifl0w tweak, it has previously been overlooked, as people opt for the software associated with Aaron Ash’s name who has gained popularity with his Barrel extension. The developer of CardSwitcher has spent the last few months rewriting and re-imagining his work to bring it up to date and make it fully compatible with devices running iOS 5. Version 2.0 has recently been released onto the BigBoss repository with the following changes:

• Live application views.
• Refined swipe gestures.
• New grid mode, designed primarily for the larger screen of the iPad but still works without issue on the iPhone and iPod touch.
• Vastly improved performance and memory usage.

The latest version brings an impressive array of improvements, but what about the underlying core functionality of CardSwitcher? Well, the tweak itself can essentially be classified as one that reworks the way multitasking is handled on the device, bringing a visual interface very similar to the now defunct webOS. When the multitasking experience is invoked, either through the standard iOS method or by setting your own through Activator, the native switcher tray is replaced by either a tiled or grid view depending on which is active through the tweak’s settings bundle. The new view allows all backgrounded applications to be seamlessly swiped through and either brought to life again, or removed from multitasking altogether by either pressing the familiar red delete option or using a vertical swipe.

One of the most beautiful parts of the tweak is the inclusion of the live app tiles. Unlike other tweaks of a similar nature which simply display a static image, CardSwitcher shows a live view of the application including any outstanding badged notifications if relevant. Although the CardSwitcher tweak has been rewritten for iOS 5 support, it also features backwards compatibility with every firmware version from iOS 4 to the latest, which is 5.1, which should be enough to cater for all jailbreak needs.
For me, the CardSwitcher tweak essentially takes something that wasn’t broke and fixes it. Native iOS multitasking isn’t something that is in dire need of a makeover and it exists for a purpose and serves that purpose quite well. However, CardSwitcher manages to make the whole multitasking experience for a more, intuitive and extremely visually appealing with a set of stunning animations. The tweak is available on the BigBoss repository at a cost of $1.99 and is available for all iOS devices running iOS 4 and above.
Of course, you will need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w, or here for Sn0wbreeze. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Use Your iPhone Or iPad As A Wireless USB Thumb Drive With AirDisk Pro For iOS – Download Now

If there is one thing that owners of Android phones laud over their iPhone owning friends, it’s the ability to use their handsets as external storage for their computers. Plug an Android phone into a computer, flick a switch and the device appears just as if it was a thumb drive.
With phones now sporting up to 64GB of storage, such a feature is more useful than you may think. Need to get a large video file to a friend’s house and don’t want to wait hours for it to upload over the internet? Need to get business files to work quickly and easily but don’t have a USB drive to hand? That’s where you smartphone could prove invaluable.
While the iPhone doesn’t offer such functionality out of the box, there are apps that try to fill the void left by Apple’s reluctance to give users access to their iPhone’s storage, and one such app is AirDisk Pro.

Retailing for less than a dollar in Apple’s App Store, AirDisk Pro allows users to keep files on their iPhones and then pull them off using just a web browser. Granted the iPhone needs to be on the same Wi-Fi network as the computer, but that’s better than nothing, and you could always turn your iPhone into its own Wi-Fi router with Personal Hotspot!
The app itself works by turning your iPhone into a file server which can be accessed via a computer and a web browser. Point the browser at your iPhone’s IP address and Robert’s your Father’s brother. You can upload and download files on a whim, and all for less than a buck.

AirDisk Pro also supports unzipping files, as well as viewing documents and playing multimedia in-app. Support for text editing is also there, along with the option to password protect the whole shebang should you be the cautious type.
AirDisk Pro fills a void left by Apple and, should you have a need for it, is a real bargain at the price. If you’ve ever found yourself wishing you had a thumb drive in your pocket for transferring files then this may well be the app for you

Download AirDisk Pro for iPhone and iPad [iTunes link]
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• Official WinZip App For iPhone, iPad And iPod touch Now Available For Download

Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Report: Next iPhone To Feature 4.6-inch Retina Display?

We could probably create a ‘law’ – along the lines of Godwin’s law or Murphy’s law – that states that with every iPhone release, there will be multiple rumors about it being designed with a larger screen. Of course, the upcoming, next-generation iPhone is no exception. Reuters has covered a rumor stemming from South Korean publication the Maeil Business Newspaper, which states that the next iPhone will have a 4.6" Retina Display screen.
While Apple’s rival phone manufacturers have all adopted larger screen sizes, Apple have remained firm in maintaining the 3.5 inch screen size throughout every single iPhone release since the inception of the device in 2007. In response to some debate and rumor that had taken place surrounding the release of the iPhone 5, blogger Dustin Curtis wrote a pretty magnificent post explaining the likely design decisions behind the iPhone’s retained and notorious screen size.

Basically, the reason behind it is so that it’s easy for most people to move their thumbs to each part of the screen with ease. This is something that becomes increasingly harder or uncomfortable to do on devices with a larger screen, such as the Galaxy S II. As you can see in the above image, Curtis produced a rendering that depicts a sort of comfortable "thumb radius", showing parts of the Galaxy S II that are out of reach.
To quote:

I pulled out my iPhone 4 to do a quick test, and it turns out that when you hold the iPhone in your left hand and articulate your thumb, you can reach almost exactly to the other side of the screen. [...] It is almost impossible to do this on the Galaxy S II.

In my opinion, a larger screen is more of an advertising gimmick. People often think that bigger is better – especially people who may wish to watch movies on their phone – but to me, it is more of a usability impairment than a positive design choice. Nevertheless, as there are constantly rumors of new iPad screen sizes, the dead horse section of the Apple rumor mill will continue unleashing these rumors of Apple increasing the screen size of its next-generation iPhone, even after the next iteration of the device has a 3.5" screen.

 So the verdict? This rumor is highly unlikely. Should Apple create an iPhone with such an enormous screen, pigs will fly and hell will freeze over. And, in an even more unlikely twist, they’d create a smaller iPad.

Angry Birds Space For iOS, Android, PC & Mac Now Available For Download!

Angry Birds has been to iOS and Android what Call Of Duty has been to consoles over the the last few years. Those crazy, unstoppable birds have flown as far as PC, Mac, Facebook and Google Chrome in their never-ending quest to defend the nest.
With three versions already on the market, Rovio has added a fourth edition to Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Seasons and the original version. First previewed earlier this month, Angry Birds Space takes things quite literally to another dimension. The initial trailer featured International Space Station rep Don Pettit, and was actually filmed in a spaceship, with Pettit test-firing plush toy versions of the fluffy birds at zero gravity.

With Angry Birds now being one of the most lucrative franchises in the industry, the release of Angry Birds Space is simultaneous on a variety of platforms. There’s an iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, and Windows iteration for you to enjoy – all of which are linked to at the bottom of this post.
iOS, and subsequently, Android, have sparked a huge wave of physics-based games, which combine simple concepts with increasing challenges to leave consumers hooked, and the original Angry Birds is arguably credited with sparking the initial interest.

Angry Birds Space incorporates some of the physics we’ve already seen, but as you’d expect from outer space, the game contains planets with their own gravitational agendas – keeping things interesting. Up until now, the series could be accused of being rather same – with levels, birds, and their respective powers not variant enough to differentiate each title.
If you’re an Angry Birds addict (and there are plenty of you out there), you can download Angry Birds Space via the download links below. Those wielding the smartphone-come-tablet that is the Samsung Galaxy Note can enjoy exclusive content including a branded level, a 30-level DLC pack for free, and the coveted new Lazer bird.

Feel free to let us know if the new game lives up to your expectations, by dropping a comment on our Facebook or Google+ pages!

• iPhone [App Store Link]
• iPad [App Store Link]
• Android [Google Play Link]
• Mac [Mac App Store Link]
• Windows [Rovio Site Link]

Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone and iPad and our Android Apps gallery to explore more apps for your Android device.

China Now Sees More iOS And Android Activations Than United States

You only need to stop for a second and have a look at the number of smartphone devices and tablets available in the marketplace to understand just how popular mobile devices are becoming in our everyday lives. For seasoned users of these devices, the ownership decision generally isn’t a difficult one as they tend to have their preferred manufacturers and preferred OSes and will only deviate if something exceptional enters the public domain. However, for those who may be new to the smartphone or tablet ownership, the decision about what device or OS to opt for can be somewhat overwhelming.

If the figures from a recent Flurry market research session are anything to go by, it would seem that the number of device activations across the iOS and Android platforms are rising at a rapid rate, indicating an increasing worldwide adoption of smartphones and tablets. At the back end of last year we were treated to some interesting insight into the fact that China had shot past the United States in Q3 of 2011 when it came to total volume of smartphone shipments, growing by 58% from the previous quarter. During the same period, the volume of devices shipped in the United States fell by 7% leveling out at a total of 23 million units.

The latest research shows that the Chinese market is continuing to grow and has now surpassed the United States, and in fact the rest of the world, when it comes to Android and iOS device activations. In the last fifteen months alone; China has reportedly gained 16% of the world’s smartphone and tablet market, rising from 8% at the beginning of 2011 and tipped to rest at a staggering 24% by the end of the current calendar month. When making a direct comparison, the United States dropped from having a 28% share of new activations down to an approximate 21% during the same tracked period.

The researched figures would seem to confirm that the philosophy of technology companies paying more attention to and investing more resources into the Chinese market is a very sensible move as it looks like the Chinese population is becoming richer. The fact that China also has the largest app session growth over the last twelve months indicates that now is the perfect time for app developers to start appealing to the Chinese market, taking advantage of the Eastern boom.
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• iPhoto For iPad And iPhone Banks Apple $5 Million, Downloaded Over A Million Times In Just 10 Days

New iPad (3rd-Gen) Battery Allegedly Not Fully Charged At 100% Mark

Those owning a tablet or a smartphone could vouch, you spend about as much time keeping tabs on the battery percentage reduction than you do enjoying many of the great features.
Battery retention is an oft-overlooked aspect to prospective consumers, usually courted by slick advertising and mind-blowing specs, but without a decent battery – as some iPhone 4S users discovered – your device is next to useless.

Having stepped up its hardware game in the new iPad with LTE, Retina display and an A5X processor capable of quad-core graphics, Apple had to commit what it would probably consider to be a cardinal sin in increasing the depth of its latest and greatest tablet device. The new inhabitants – particularly the 4G chip – guzzle battery like a thirsty camel, so Apple had to sacrifice it’s thinner and lighter motif in order to lay on the much-improved iPad to expectant consumers.
Dr. Raymond M. Soneira, creator of DisplayMate, has written a report on the 3rd-gen iPad, and reckons the new battery continues charging a great deal of time after iOS displays that lovely ’100%’ statement of completion in the top-right corner. He goes on to urge iPad users looking to get the most juice as possible into their new tablet to continue charging for up to an hour after it shows as 100 percent.

Speaking with ArsTechnica via e-mail, Soneira noted that after measuring the power actually drawn by the AC Adapter, he discovered:

"The new iPad continues to charge for up to 1 hour after it claims to reach 100 percent. This affects the battery run time if you stop charging when it says 100 percent. Other tablets and smartphones also lie about their charging status, so if getting maximum battery run time is crucial, people need to keep their devices recharging for longer than the screen claims."

So, folks, as well as keeping brightness down to the minimum feasible, slipping into Airplane mode wherever possible and only allowing your device to push through necessary notifications, you can also add "over charge by one hour" to the list of things to preserve the precious droplets of gas in the tank.
Let us know how much it improves the longevity of your device, by dropping a comment via the usual mediums below.

Next iPhone Arriving This Fall With 4G LTE, Will Reportedly Feature Same 3.5-inch Display

It seems that the better devices get, the more demanding consumers become. Barely a week has passed since the release of the new iPad, and yet already it seems much of the blogosphere is focusing its attention on the next iPhone.
Indeed, iPad aside, we’ve only had the pleasure of Siri and the iPhone 4S for some five months, yet there has been an underlying notion of "this is great, but what’s next?" ever since the release date.

It was initially suspected the next iPhone would be 4G LTE compliant, a suspicion which seemed even likelier to materialize with the new iPad supporting 4G. Yesterday, the discovery of strings within iOS 5.1 gave us as sure an indication of a 4G iPhone as we could get without actually hearing it from Apple officially.
More details have now emerged, with iMore reckoning Apple will stick with the current 3.5-inch screen size. A few interesting theories have cropped up hitherto, offering supposed reasons as to why the fruit company has stuck with the same screen size for nearly five years, while rivals’ displays have gotten progressively larger. Designer Dustin Curtis believed that since the average thumb couldn’t cover a diameter much larger than 3.5-inch, Apple wouldn’t go any larger. However, we’ve also been hearing that Apple will go higher – all the way up to 4.6-inches in fact, so the jury remains out on whether Tim Cook’s company will finally break the mold.
October 2012 seems to be the perceived release frame – not too much of a surprise since the iPhone 4S released last October. Apple reaped the benefits of the holiday shoppers last year with exceptional sales, so will be unlikely to revert its release cycle back to the summer, which some reports have claimed.
Moreover, since Apple’s iPhone 3GS was still retailing (and selling well) up until last October, it’s clear that the iPhone can withstand the test of time. Thus, Apple will not want to shorten the iPhone 4S’s shelf life by releasing a new one any earlier than a year later.

As well as the similar-sized screen and 4G LTE radio, iMore reckons the device will come with a "micro" dock connector, which will make the plug and socket smaller and in turn free up space inside the device for hardware. It will not compromise any data or transfer speed, and will be a similar introduction to the space-saving Micro SIM tray within the iPhone 4.

How To Use Siri To Give You Detailed And Real-Time Battery Information Of Your iPhone

When you consider all of the fantastic and powerful features that the iPhone has, you quickly come to realize that it is a fairly fantastic piece of consumer technology. The latest in the series, the iPhone 4S not only has an amazing Retina display and an 8 mega-pixel camera, but it also has an awesome built-in intelligent voice assistant. We are living in a generation where consumers constantly demand more and more from manufacturers, but it is sometimes worth stopping for a moment and considering the intense technology which we already have.

With that said, I for one am not going to complain if Apple keep on pumping impressive features into their smartphones, and will certainly relish in the fusion of Apple hardware and software mixed with the enhancements and modifications that the jailbreak community keeps pumping out. The birth of the iPhone 4S gave developers the bug for developing tweaks and extensions for Siri, but it wasn’t until the Absinthe jailbreak was released for A5 devices in January that we really started to see Cydia getting flooded with tons and tons of amazing tweaks and enhancements.
Cydia packages are sometimes a hit and miss affair, and that has certainly been the case when it comes to Siri-based tweaks. Some of them have proved to be extremely useful, such as the ones that allow system settings to be easily manipulated. However, others fall under the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” category and would have probably been left on the developer’s hard drive. The BatteryLevelAE tweak falls into the useful category, as it uses Siri to provide pretty accurate battery life statistics, which we all know can come in very handy when running iOS 5 due to the terrible battery life users have been suffering

BatteryLevelAE is another package that is built upon the AssistantExtensions tweak and therefore will install AE as a dependency if it is not already on the device. AssistantExtensions is obviously a very handy little framework for Siri developers to use, but I happen to have a gripe with it due to the fact that it sometimes places ads on the Siri GUI when the assistant is invoked, something that is a big no for me. That shouldn’t detract from the usefulness of BatteryLevelAE which provides comprehensive battery information through the use of simple voice commands such as “how much talk time do I have left?” and “how much audio time do I have left?”.
The full command menu can also be invoked by saying “battery help menu”, prompting Siri to display a full list of possible commands on the display. Considering the ongoing battery problems which users have been experiencing with builds of iOS 5 prior to 5.1, BatteryLevelAE would seem like a very intelligent purchase to keep track of potentially imminent power failure. BatteryLevelAE is available from the BigBoss repository at a cost of $0.99 and requires a Siri compatible device with iOS 5 installed.
Of course, you will need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w, or here for Sn0wbreeze. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.
(via CultOfMac)
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Ultra Wide HD LWP For Android: Set Wallpapers Of Any Size Without Cropping, Apply Effects/Borders/Overlays And More!

One very small area where Android could take a lot of improvement is its wallpaper cropping tool. For most people, this isn’t really an issue, but with enthusiast folk who like to work on every fine detail of their homescreen setup, a good wallpaper is considered to be one of its integral parts.
Now, if the built-in wallpaper cropping tool doesn’t work, what do you do? On iOS, you would be stuck with it forever (unless you jailbreak and there’s a relevant tweak on Cydia). On Android, you look for third-party alternatives and we came across one today. It’s called Ultra Wide HD LWP and you can check it after the jump!

Developed by lithium76 from popular Android development forums XDA-Developers, Ultra Wide HD LWP is a powerful wallpaper editing tool that lets you use a image as a wallpaper that way you want it, not inhibited by any of Android’s built-in wallpaper-selection tool’s limitations.

When you launch Ultra Wide HD LWP, it takes you straight to Android’s Live Wallpaper menu from where you have to select Ultra Wide HD. From here, you can jump into settings from where you can edit the selected image’s aspect ratio, its level of detail, a wireframe, the type of effect to apply to it (think Instagram-type filters) and select an overlay to name a few things. Once you’re done, you press the Back button on your and then tap Set Wallpaper to do the deed

Ultra Wide HD LWP comes in “Lite” [Play Link] and paid [Play Link] versions. As you can guess from the name, the Lite version comes with limited versions and applies an “HD” watermark to your wallpaper whereas the paid version comes with all features and without watermarks.
We previously covered an app called Wallpaper Wizardrii that basically had the same intention behind it (to be a better wallpaper selection/editing tool), but in our time with both it and Ultra Wide HD LWP, we found Ultra Wide HD LWP to be the app for the simple reason that it is a whole lot easier to understand and use.
Be sure to check out our Android Apps gallery to explore more apps for your Android device.

The New iPad Is Magical, When Given To Two Magicians [VIDEO]

We love a good magic show here at Redmond Pie, and if anyone can somehow manage to incorporate some technology into a magic act then we’re particularly interested. Magic and technology, a match made in heaven. We have been treated to just that a few times since the iPad arrived, but this might just be the best we’ve encountered yet.
The iPad has been called a lot of names since its initial release back in 2010. Much fun has been poked at Apple for its incessant use of superlatives when describing its devices, and the iPad has been the biggest beneficiary of such exaggeration.

Those who have been paying attention over the last few years will no doubt remember Apple calling the iPad ‘magical and revolutionary.’ Few would argue against the iPad being revolutionary, but is magical not perhaps getting a little carried away?

As this video shows, Apple may actually have been on to something!
We have seen magicians use the iPad as a prop a few times before, and some of the same tricks have found their way into this performance too, but we have to admit that this is possibly the most impressive video we have seen to date, and we’re sure you will agree.
The performance by Step2 Communication at MIPIM in Cannes included no less than seven different iPads to pull off, and spans over three minutes of impressive Apple-powered magic.
We can only speculate about how much practice and preparation this presentation took in order to get spot on, but all we can do is hold our hands up and offer a hearty "well done" to those involved. Color us impressed.
We really have to admit; these magicians (or tricksters) pulled off an amazing feat with all those iPads in the background. I can’t emphasize more on the fact that we’re all dearly impressed.
On a semi-related note, has anyone ever wondered why nobody ever seems to use an Android tablet for these performances? Or perhaps a nice BlackBerry PlayBook?
Someone buying a BlackBerry PlayBook… Now that really would be magical.
(via iMore)
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• iPad Used In ‘iPad Horror’ Halloween Video, Genius Ensues
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Developer Finds A Way To Downgrade iOS 5.1 To iOS 5.0.1 On iPad 2 And iPhone 4S

H8sn0w, the well known iOS developer and researcher who is responsible for the production of Sn0wbreeze, iFaith, iReb and f0recast has been hard at work again trying to resolve an issue that has been tainting the experience of owners of the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The said two Apple devices are powered by the A5 processor, and as any jailbreak fan will know, it hasn’t previously been possible to perform firmware downgrades on those two units. When Apple releases a new version of iOS, they promptly stop signing the older firmware, meaning that any official restores result in the user installing the latest official iOS version onto their device.
In normal circumstances, going to the latest version of iOS isn’t really a big issue for standard users. However, the problem occurs when iDevice owners who wish to perform a jailbreak update their software, leaving them having to sit and wait patiently until the Dev-Teams produce a working, distributable jailbreak for that new iOS version. On older devices, users can benefit from a firmware downgrade to versions of iOS that Apple no longer signs as long as they have the relevant SHSH blobs saved for that firmware. In most cases, Cydia automatically captures any available blobs and update the users’ Cydia app with the blobs that have been saved. Jailbreak fans also use the very popular and powerful TinyUmbrella tool to quickly and efficiently capture available SHSH blobs and save them locally on their machines for use at a later date.

Although we have had the iPad 2 since March 2011, and the iPhone 4S since October, there hasn’t been a method available to allow users to downgrade these A5 powered devices which means that a restore is required for any reason that the latest firmware version would be installed. Canadian based iOS developer and hacker iH8sn0w claims to have found a loophole in Apple’s APTicket system that allowed him to successfully downgrade his iPad 2 from iOS 5.1 to 5.0.1. The good news is that he also believe that the loophole he has found will also allow firmware downgrades on Apple’s new iPad running on the new A5X processor. Obviously this will only be possible when newer firmwares become available due to the fact that all new iPads were actually shipped with iOS 5.1, which is the current version.

The news basically means that owners of the iPad 2, the new iPad and the iPhone 4S have finally been invited to the downgrade party and will be able to restore their devices to any firmware of their choice, providing that they have the relevant SHSH blobs saved. Other than a tweet from iH8sn0w about the APTicket system loophole, we have no additional information from the developer, but as it filters through we will be sure to bring it to you.
You may also like to check out:

• Downgrade iOS 5.1 To 5.0.1, 5.0, 4.3.3, 4.3.5 On iPhone, iPad, iPod touch [How-To Tutorial]

iOS 5.1 For iPhone, iPad And iPod touch Sees Impressive Adoption Amongst Users

According to new figures released by an iOS app developer, iOS 5.1 has seen huge growth amongst owners of iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, bringing a large percentage of devices up to the latest version of iOS within just two weeks.
Apple always prides itself in the speed at which its new software updates find their way onto the devices of iPhone and iPad owners across the globe. Getting users to upgrade to the latest and greatest versions of iOS is something that is not only important for Apple itself, but for the thousands of app developers that rely on users migrating to versions of iOS with new APIs and features built in, too.

The latest version of iOS is version number 5.1, with bug fixes and security updates being the order of the day. With no major updates arriving this time around, it is perhaps surprising that iOS 5.1 has seen such stellar uptake amongst iOS device owners.
Developer David Smith has been tracking the versions of iOS that users of his Audiobooks app are running on their devices, and he speculated that the new over-the-air update system may cause an increase in update over previous releases which required devices to be plugged into iTunes for updates.

Released on March 7th, iOS 5.1 has seen phenomenal update figures, with 50% of those eligible to use the OTA update system having already taken the plunge. After just over two weeks, that number had risen to an impressive 77%.
It had long been suspected that those users who are still stuck on old releases of iOS had been reluctant to update because either they didn’t want to plug their cherished iOS device with iTunes, or they simply didn’t know an update was available. With the new over-the-air updates prompting users to update when new versions are made available, those who do not keep up to date with the technology scene will be pushed to update whereas before they may never have known they could.

 Over-the-air updates were added to iOS in version 5.0, and have been used for both the iOS 5.0.1 and 5.1 updates since. Allowing users to update their devices without the need for a cable or a computer, OTA updates make updating our iOS devices easier than ever.

WeeSearch Pro For iPhone: Search Multiple Locations On The Web Directly From iOS 5 Notification Center

If internet users actually took a few minutes to sit back and take stock of the amount of information they extract from the world wide web on a daily basis I think they might actually be a little taken aback. The majority of individuals use the internet to learn and acquire information as well as seeking out and watching videos of cute puppies on YouTube. With sites like YouTube and Vimeo, search engine giants such as Google and free information hubs like Wikipedia; the internet really does have something for everyone and it is a very rare instance that you can’t find an answer to something you are looking for.
For those who are always connected to a desktop or a notebook, quickly flicking between different search engines provides little fuss and can be done quite easily. However, the current boom in the smartphone and tablet industry means that more and more users are turning to their mobile devices throughout the day as their main access to the internet and all of the information it holds. Once upon a time, mobile users were limited to websites which had been specifically formatted to be used on WAP-enabled devices, thankfully this is no longer the case.

Owners of an iPhone happen to also be benefitting from a jailbreak now have the option of downloading the WeeSearch Pro plugin by Jonas Gessner, who some may know from his Currency Converter or ProTube enhancements that can be found in Cydia. WeeSearch Pro is a Notification Center based tweak which, when activated provides users with a dedicated NC-based hub for all things search related. When activated, WeeSearch Pro puts a simple search bar into Notification Center, along with a handy selection of pre-defined sites to search for information on. The plugin comes with the ability to search through Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Wolfram Alpha, Yahoo, Bing and Google Pics which I would imagine would cater for the majority of people’s searching requirements.

If that isn’t enough, WeeSearch Pro does offer the ability to enter a user-defined search engine which can be added through the ‘Manage Search Engines’ option in the preferences section of iOS. WeeSearch Pro also comes with quite a substantial set of configurable options which allow users to change how the tweak behaves as well as the aesthetics of it within Notification Center. One of the coolest features of the tweak is the addition of a very simple overlaid web view which appears through a page curled animation when the search button is pressed. This new view allows the results to be viewed before deciding whether to continue and open the results in Mobile Safari or dismiss and return to Notification Center

WeeSearch Pro is available from the BigBoss repository for $1.49 and requires iOS 5 or above. An additional back up utility is also available as a free of charge download which allows user-defined search engines to be backed up and easily recalled at a later date.
Of course, you will need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w, or here for Sn0wbreeze. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Skype For iPad Updated With Retina Display Graphics, Makes Us Wish The New iPad Had An HD FaceTime Camera

Skype, the popular VoIP communications software, has just updated its iPad app, improving visual quality for those using the new Retina display.
When it comes to keeping in touch with those far and wide, Skype is undoubtedly the number one choice, allowing voice calls for very competitive prices. Skype was probably the first company to capitalize on internet connections for voice chat, and is partly responsible for the shift from traditional telephone line calls – which can often be extortionately expensive.

2011 was the year of the big acquisitions, and Redmond-based Microsoft moved in for Skype last summer for an eye-watering 12.5 million dollars – much to the surprise of many analysts.
Microsoft has subsequently sought to implement the online telecommunications software and technology wherever possible, including mobile and Xbox LIVE. With Windows 8 quite publicly being prepared for release later this year, it is of vital importance that Skype is utilized to the maximum, enabling Steve Ballmer’s company to recoup some of that hefty investment.

Keeping the iPad app up-to-date is certainly a step in the right direction. Having shifted three million in the first weekend alone, it seems consumers are rushing to get their paws on the new device, which as well as a Retina display, includes quad-core graphics, a brand-new, 5-megapixel camera, and, of course, 4G LTE technology.
A native Skype app seemed to take an age to land on Apple’s market-leading tablet, having finally been released last August. With video calling over Wi-Fi and 3G, it certainly trumps Apple’s own FaceTime in terms of options, since it – despite now retailing an iPad with 4G – does not allow FaceTime video calling over cellular connection.
The latest version requires iOS 4 and up, although release notes recommend running the latest and greatest iOS 5+ for the very best Skype experience.

This appears to merely be a cosmetic update, so aside from the Retina tweaks, there are no other changes noted, but this update really makes us wish that the new 3rd-gen iPad had a front facing HD camera instead of VGA one; however if you stumble across any new features or indeed any bugs, please share them via the comments section on Facebook or Google+.
Download Skype for iPad [iTunes Link]
Check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

CmdTab For iOS Brings The OS X Command+Tab App Switcher Method To Jailbroken iOS Devices

Users of a Mac, or even a Windows-based PC, will be aware of the fact that you can flick between running apps by using the command/Alt and Tab buttons together. A quick press of these two buttons will flick to the last viewed app and back again. However, if you hold the buttons down together, a nice little view is overlaid on the screen which shows all of the running apps and allows the user to toggle between them all and choose one quickly. An iOS developer known as coffeejayyy has decided to make an iOS implementation of that feature and has called it CmdTab, available in Cydia now.
CmdTab for iOS works via an Activator gesture, which when invoked brings up a very similar overlay on the screen with the difference being that CmdTab doesn’t show a list of running apps but instead has a number of hard-coded shortcuts. The shortcuts included allows you to compose a text message, access Wi-Fi settings, open up the default Twitter app, launch Cydia and launch the Music app on the device. The view can be dismissed by pressing the Home button and leaves elegantly with a nice animation.

All in all, CmdTab is a nice little implementation of the Mac OS X feature, but it falls down in a couple of places for me. To be a true implementation; I would require it to effectively rework the iOS multitasking and display the apps which are currently backgrounded. The developer has chosen to not make the CmdTab tweak about multitasking, but instead about quick launching certain things on the device, which in itself is fine. However, the tweak would be a lot more powerful if it came with a settings option, allowing users to choose their own shortcuts rather than have to live with the developer’s choices. With that said, CmdTab is a very polished and pretty tweak and considering it is free of charge, is definitely worth a look.
CmdTab is available as a free of charge download from the ModMyi repository and lists no particular device or software requirements.
Of course, you will need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w, or here for Sn0wbreeze. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.
Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Apple Set For A Rough Ride Over “4G” Moniker On The New iPad In Australia

Well well well, what do we have here? It seems that Apple’s use of the term ’4G’ in its new iPad naming structure is causing quite a stir in Australia, with the confusion that LTE and 4G is bringing worldwide leaving The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission unimpressed.
The Commission today announced its intention to file an application in Federal Court tomorrow, with seeking penalties, corrective advertising and injunctions. Those down under, it seems, aren’t too keen on Apple’s use of the term 4G when Australia’s carriers don’t actually support LTE.
This is a problem that many have seen coming ever since Apple decided to call its cellular iPad ’4G’ internationally, even though 4G networks are not readily available. The best cause of action would no doubt have been to call the device 4G in territories that feature LTE carriers, but then to package the iPad as 3G everywhere else. The iPad and iPad 2 were called 3G, and they were. The new iPad is still 3G, yet is apparently 4G because, well, Apple says so.

It is worth noting that Apple has added a paragraph of text to its iPad Wi-Fi+4G page which the company will presumably feel clears it of any confusion, whether anyone reads it or not.

“The iPad with Wi-Fi + 4G model can roam worldwide on fast GSM/UMTS networks, including HSPA, HSPA+, and DC-HSDPA. When you travel internationally, you can use a micro-SIM card from a local carrier. You can also connect to the 4G LTE networks of AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. and Bell, Rogers, and Telus in Canada.”

Still, we can’t see that carrying much weight for those that buy iPads in stores expecting to get increased data speeds when, in all eventuality, they won’t.
Apple has been guilty of the 4G slight of hand before. The iPhone 4S recently received a 4G badge in the US but interestingly, those outside the US still sport a 3G badge. Why hold back with the iPhone, but not the iPad?

We’ll be watching this with great interest, all the time wondering whether other countries will be the next to take umbrage with Apple’s loose use of the term ’4G.’ And oh, what about the countries which don’t even have LTE? Point to wander upon.

HandcentSMS For iPhone Offers A Powerful And Customizable Alternative To iOS’ Native Messages App

The lack of Messages app alternatives on Cydia could be either due to the fact that biteSMS and others have pretty much covered all bases and are extremely functional, or it could have something to do with the amount of work involved in creating such an app. Whatever the reason, the guys over at Handcent haven’t been deterred and have released their HandcentSMS app through the Cydia store which they believe can unlock the messaging potential of a user’s iPhone. HandcentSMS is an entirely free, very powerful and highly customizable alternative to Apple’s native app which handles both SMS and MMS messaging services.
The download comes in at 3.5MB and essentially attempts to totally replace the messaging experience on the device, circumventing the need for the built-in offering. At the time of writing, version 1.0 has just been released, and ships with the following feature set:

• Quick reply capabilities without the need to launch the full version of the app.
• The ability to heavily customize the conversation list, which includes the incoming and outgoing fonts, background colors and text bubble styles.
• Set ring tones and alerts on a per contact basis.
• Hide or show message time stamps.
• Enhanced MMS and slide show capabilities.
• Message signatures and cross platform Emoji support.
• Optional online account registration to integrate additional Handcent services such as e-cards.
• Much, much more. 

HandcentSMS obviously comes with a large number of features which will undoubtedly prove popular with users, but there are a few issues. The app is clearly designed for those who want more from their texting experience, but everything seems a little thrown together. The animations when switching between views are very blocky, with new views appear rigidly and doesn’t have that smooth iOS feel to it. I also noticed an issue with contact names being displayed in the conversation list, that it would just display the number or the email address, even though there is a name assigned to it that is displayed correctly through the native Messages app.
The pop-up options are something that will appeal to many, but didn’t seem to work during my testing with every incoming message being intercepted by Apple’s Messages app, even though the HandcentSMS settings were set to use it as the default app.
HandcentSMS has the early makings of providing a very powerful experience to jailbroken users and hopefully the development team will iron out some of the bugs which at the minute are showstoppers for me. The app is available as a free of charge download from the BigBoss repository and compatible with all firmwares above iOS 3.2.

Of course, you will need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w, or here for Sn0wbreeze. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.

Be sure to check out our iPhone Apps Gallery and iPad Apps Gallery to explore more apps for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.