If you have an iPhone and it’s not jailbroken, you are missing out on a wealth of applications that simply enhance your iPhone experience. Simply put, I would not own my iPhone if I couldn’t jailbreak it!
instructions on how to jailbreak your iPhone: windows – mac
Here is a list of must-have applications that you can only get after you have jailbroken your phone. The list is focused on applications that benefit most people and not just the power user.
I don’t understand why Apple hasn’t caught on to how important this functionality is on our devices. Until they do, there is always Clippy! There are other 3rd party clipboard/copy/paste options out there for the iPhone, however I have had the most success with Clippy.
Amongst the features:
- You can copy and store multiple items to the “stack” (great for difficult words to type that you use often)
- Can copy masked characters (i.e. passwords)
- Move your cursor as you normally would, double tap and drag to select your word(s)
So, you have grown to love your jailbroken iPhone and have amassed a collection of wonderful applications at your disposal. Then out of the blue, Apple introduces a firmware update…
…you wait patiently as the incredible iPhone Dev-Team makes it possible for us to update to the new jailbroken firmware. After the updated tools are available, you anxiously dive in and update your firmware.
However you find that after the firmware update has completed and you have synced with iTunes to restore your backup, NONE of your favorite jailbroken apps were restored!
This is where AptBackup is a life saver! AptBackup only has two options, backup and restore.
Before you update your firmware, install AptBackup then from within the app, select backup. It appears to have done nothing however in the background, it has created a list of all the jailbroken apps and stores it on your phone where it WILL be backed up by iTunes. So whether you had to hard reset your phone or you have just updated to the latest jailbroken firmware, all you need to do is restore from iTunes, install AptBackup, then from within the app, select restore.
AptBackup then downloads and installs all of your previously installed apps.
*Advice: Prior to using the restore option, I recommend:
a. That you plug your iPhone into power so the battery doesn’t die during this process.
b. That you turn off the automatic Auto-Lock under Settings. When Auto-Lock engages, it stops the restore process.
One of my peeves of the iPhone is that when your screen is securely locked, you cannot view your upcoming calendar events without unlocking your phone, go to the home screen, then select the calendar app.
Lock Calendar allows you to view your upcoming appointment when you wake your iPhone WITHOUT having to unlock it etc…
Why be boring? STAND OUT! Personalize your iPhone to YOUR specifications! WinterBoard can help.
With WinterBoard, you can activate a theme of your choice and give your iPhone the character it deserves. Here is a screenshot of what mine looks like currently.
Have you ever been conquering the world (for the last 2 hrs!) in your favorite iPhone game when you had to stop for a second and open up another application, only to find that when you returned to your game, IT DIDN”T SAVE!!!
Then Backgrounder is your app. Apple doesn’t like applications running in the background, and understandibly so. The more apps you have open, the more memory it takes up, the slower your device. This was a big gripe of mine back when I used Windows Mobile.
Backgrounder allows you to exit and application however keep it running in the background. So when you open the app back up, you are right where you left off.
To background your app, simply hold down the home button until you see the prompt telling you it is backgrounding the app. Then let go. If you keep holding the home button down, it will kill the app as it is designed to do.
For being such a great phone, there is certainly a lot to rant about. Another peeve of mine is that I cannot quickly and easily enable/disable such services as wi-fi and bluetooth. SBSettings is an answer to prayer!
Simply swipe your finger across the info bar at the top of your screen, PRESTO! You have a menu drop down that allows you to manage your services (and more). If you could only manage your VPN connection from here too :-(.
It is provides a quick way to respring, reboot, or power off your device.
Through applications from the app store (like Air Sharing) or even via SCP, you can copy files to your iPhone. The problem is, Apple doesn’t want you to do anything with those files FROM your iPhone. This Safari hack is a way around this.
For example, I like to copy PDF files to my phone so that I can view them as I need to. Although not terribly elegant or user friendly (unless you understand unix filesystems), this hack allows you to open Safari and in the address bar, type the path to your PDF (i.e. file:///var/mobile/ebook.pdf) and allow you to view it as if you pulled it directly from a website.
The great thing about using Safari to do this is that you can save the URL to your local file just like you can a website, whether it is in your bookmarks or as an icon on your home screen.
Have you ever been to a meeting or conference where you didn’t have a network connection? How about when you are on the road and you get a call telling you that something in production just died and you need to fix it now! You have your laptop but no cellular modem.
Having been there, not a great place to be. This is why I bought PDANet.
Yes I said bought. It is one of the few jailbroken applications you would need to pay for however in my opinion it is well worth it!
PDANet used to be an approved application from the app store, however Apple decided to pull it from the store. I am not sure AT&T liked the app as it conflicts with their business model of making you buy a separate air card for your laptop or charging you more to tether your phone to your laptop as a modem.
Nevertheless, PDANet is fantastic! From any OS, you can uses Ad-Hoc wireless to connect to your iPhone which acts as a router and pipes you through your 3g/EDGE network. On Windows only, you can save some battery life and tether your iPhone via USB. In either case, it gets you online and in a jiffy!
JailBreaking your iPhone is a value-add not only to the power user, but to the regular user alike. In an upcoming article, I will share with you some must have power user tools that will allow you to use your iPhone as a portable computer in a pinch!
- boogybren