Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Jailbreak iPhone to Enhance Experience & Efficiency - easy steps and apps
Like many iPhone users I was very curious about this whole Jailbreaking stuff. I did tried to google it when I first brought iPhone. But after reading all the techie stuff, i gave up untill I read about www.jailbreakme.com . Going to the website Jailbreakme.com from any iPhone offers possibly the easiest jailbreak method in iPhone history. Using a PDF security flaw the website uses a corrupt font that makes running code possible.
And so I just pointed my Safari browser to jailbreakme.com and within half a minute, I got the Cydia store icon on my phone.
So why would you want to Jailbreak anyway ? some of my thoughts?
- You are a freak and tech savvy that you want to keep experimenting
- You are bored with the same old iPhone UI, lack of functionality and want something new.
- You want to transfer files & photos over Bluetooth to PC and other phones
- You want a view all files and email them as attachments.
- You want a good tools for multitasking, email notifications, alerts, T9 supported dialer etc..
- You want to tether your iphone to use internet on laptop
- use skype and other messengers to make VOIP over 3G.
- Add new UI themes and icons to iphone.
- and do many things you always wished.... :)
And what is really a Jailbreaking ?
Its a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run third-party unsigned code on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download many extensions and themes previously unavailable through the App Store via unofficial installers such as Cydia & RockApp
Jailbreaking Myths and Risks - many stories
Jailbreaking is not unlocking! It is risk free and totally legal (as many claim). Everything that works before jailbreaking continues to work after. Jailbreaking only adds features. You can simply restore in iTunes at anytime to get back to a factory state.
Why Apple is against Jailbreaking ?
Of course Apple wants to keep control of the iPhone platform. Apple has made Apps store rules for their benefits. Some of these rules include: patching system files such as SpringBoard, allowing apps to run in the background, running apps out of the “sandbox”, and simply doing things Apple decided that they don’t want you to do often for reasons to their benefit, not yours (such as tethering).
When iPhone was launched, it had 1-2yr old features that rest of competition already had. May be they want to create customer curiosity for next release and not provide everything at once.
Read more at http://thebigboss.org/why-jailbreak-iphone
How to Jailbreak ?
Just point your iphone safari browser to www.jailbreakme.com Dont know when this hack will be fixed by Apple. So hurry.!!!
The process ?
- Once you point your browser to jailbreakme.com and swipe your finger on the lock button, the iphone will rebooth and add a Cydia store icon on homescreen. thats it. Done.
- Now use this Cydia store to find another Apps store RockApp. Now you have three app stores. The original iphone apps, Cydia and RockApp
- You can now search the apps you want and download them. I have found the paid apps in cydia and rockapp are costly then the iphone apps store. Generally the jailbreak apps are in the range of $10 to $20. There are few at $3 to $5. But hardly any at $0.99
- The skeleton basic :
- Springboard is the name given by Apple to the home screen
- Summerboard is the name of a Jailbroken app that lets you customize the Springboard
- Winterboard is the new 2.X Jailbroken app that basically succeeded summerboard in its functions
Jailbreak Apps that I have on my iphone with actual screenshots
This is the G.O.C. Theme Pro by ToyVan $1.99
http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/g.o.c.-pro.html This theme makes transparent circular icons and adds a 5 icon deck. It has custom sounds and wall paper. You need to also install 5 icon app to get them on the deck.
The Cydia Store - free
This is probably one developer Jay Freeman show. The store is self sufficient to buy, download apps, update existing apps and remove apps. It also shows the space available.
RockApp Store - free
SB Settings - free
http://cydia.saurik.com/package/sbsettings
The Activator App - free
The WinderBoard - free
http://cydia.saurik.com/package/winterboard
This is the place where all UI stuff happens. The order of rendering the apps are decided here. It controls the homescreen layout.
Notified
This app pulls all your notifications together. I would call it unified messaging.
IntelliScreen - $9.99
http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/intelliscreen.html
This is my favorite. It shows all notifications on your homescreen like emails, calendar, weather, news, etc.
iBluenova
http://www.medevil.net/
my another favorite. Now you can send files over bluetooth using this app. I dont know why Apple is so cruel to prevent people sharing photos and files from iphone to other devices.
Elert $1.99
http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/elert.html
Shows a quick summary of new email no matter what App you're using on your phone. This is really helpful.
My3G
http://www.rockyourphone.com/index.php/my3g.html
this app fools the other apps that your iphone is on wifi and you can use other apps on 3G. Like make a VOIP call from skype.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Rise of Smart phones & Fall of Feature phones. The trend of designing mobile UI for specific user group is slowly diminishing.
With the news of withdrawal of Microsoft kin mobiles(Project Pink), for whatever rumored reasons, I am wondering if there was really a need for different UI for different user segments. As Kin phones were targeted for Teens with low cost and cloud storage and sync, the same can be achieved with just a change of skins to OS based phones. The OS based phones already offer social applications, cloud syncing, multimedia and games. Here i am talking about phones like iPhone & Android. Windows 7 is still not out in the market.
Traditionally all the hardware companies made many mobile phones , each targeted for 'so-called' different user groups - college going, business users, multimedia users, gaming users, etc. And accordingly the price and features are added or removed from each phone to create thousands of models. Non of these phones are perfect for anyone. Forget the UI design. Do you really need so many variety of phones from same company ? or only one phone for all, like iPhone from Apple. Yes, Apple only has one phone.
I use iPhone for emails, photos, cloud syncing, etc. all the day. When i go home, my 3yr daughter uses my iPhone very easily to navigate to games and play games. She even tries to download new games from apps store icon. One day I was very surprised to receive iTunes receipt for new game downloaded(by my daughter). My wife uses my phone for checking her social networking and messengers. So one single phone is satisfying needs for different users.
I feel that, as the cost of mobile OS goes down along with the cost of hardware(memory, processor), everyone would love to have a OS based phones then these proprietary feature phones made by hardware companies. The advantage of OS phones is that you can add new applications, update the OS with new features and really customize it. Feature phones dont offer any of this. You have to just throw the phone if it becomes outdated.
If you realize now, the word PDA has lost its value. Few years back Microsoft popularized the term PDA with windows CE phones. They differentiated themself with phones having capability to add memory, document editing and emailing. I wonder why these phones were kept purposely low multimedia standard. They would always have a bad camera and no music player or FM. Blackberry phones followed the same strategy . The reasoning was, business users are machines and they dont have human feeling to take pictures and listen to music. What a shit!. Why would you prevent anyone from doing so. Ya, just to make another category of mobile phones. Sales strategy !. Thanks to new term, Smart Phones, you now have every feature of business phones along with all multimedia. The line between business phone and multimedia phone has vanished. These new category of Smart phones satisfy every category of users. They are OS based.
Another term that become popular is Apps Store. Ya, with iPhone having more then 100,000 apps in its Apps Store and that too mostly at $0.99, it has really become affordable for everyone. Moreover Apple made it very easy to add applications, whereas Microsoft and Nokia had terrible application download process. Think of any idea on mobile and you will find an application in app store. The Apps store provides something for every user category. Now, where is the question of designing the whole phone for only one user group. If the OS offers flexibility to customize the layout, style and information on screen, there is no need to design for just specific category of users. Instead, have a generic OS and allow for applications designed for specific user groups. This enables you to have only one phone and one OS satisfying every user. Slowly the control of mobile UI design is getting transfered from handset manufacturer to Apps developer company.
With the advent of multi touch screens the phone form factor has also reduced to a mear rectangular block with glass. The industrial design for handset company is minimalistic approach. Similar to OS apps , you can have different mobile covers to customize your mobile look & personality. Some covers look business class(leathers) and other look funny for teens (yellow covers). The product industrial design is also commoditized. Users can change the design as they want.