I read when jailbreak 8.0 came out and it came without Cydia but with a host of issues.  A few updates took care of that.  Again, DO NOT UPDATE to iOS8.1.1.  The patches the hack.

From Redmond Pie

UPDATE: Team Pangu has released a tool to jailbreak iOS 8 to iOS 8.1 untethered on iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 5s, 5c, 5, 4s, all iPads, and iPod touch 5. You can read more about it all, along with jailbreaking instructions, download link and more for new jailbreak in our dedicated articles given below.

iOS 8 – iOS 8.1 Jailbreak (Tutorials):

• How To Jailbreak iOS 8.1 Untethered Using Pangu8 [Windows Tutorial]
• How To Jailbreak iOS 8.1 Using Pangu For Mac OS X [Guide] [Mac OS X Tutorial]

For iOS 8 / 8.1 compatible tweaks, check out:

• iOS 8 / 8.1 Compatible Cydia Jailbreak Tweaks [LIST]

Update x2: Pangu version 1.2.1 is out. Download it from here.

If you are already jailbroken using Pangu8, make sure you update the latest untether package to get all the bug fixes. A guide on how to update to latest untether package for already jailbroken devices can be found here.

BTW, there will be a Jailbreak for iOS7, just give it time.  Not sure about an Unlock though.

This is a first pass list BTW, I will be editing and improving as time goes on.

Control Center – SBSettings

I love SBSetting and finally it seems Apple is feeling the love.  However, they still have a way to go.  SBSetting is control center times 3.   Although Control Center feels more OS’ish, it lacks many of the customizations I’ve come to expect from SBSettings.  There is also NCSettings, which has a few bells, but I have not tried it.

App Store AutoUpdate – Auto App Updater

I do not use this because I have an older phone and like to know what is going to be updated or not before I do it.  However, should my next phone be Apple, I would have installed this, if Apple did not already do it.  Its a great feature that Android has had for awhile now.

LiveClock – LiveClock

How more direct rip off can you get? LiveClock changes the clock icon to actually tell you the proper time.  Neat.  So what does Apples LiveClock (noticed the same name?) basically the same thing … except you cannot customize it.

The App Switcher – Auxo

App switching is a big missing element in iphones.  Yes we can do it now, but its clumsy.  Auxo looks to address that by using the WebOS inspired approach.  Its was a little buggy for me so I do have it installed anymore.  I read Dash is pretty good but I have yet to try it.

Lock Animations – UnlockFX

Did you really dig those unlock animations you saw?  Go get UnlockFX and feel the love. I have a few hacks running around the unlock screen so I did not want to invite a conflict, but I never tried it so it might be fine.

Folders – Infinifolders

So now you can finally out folders into folders!  BRILLIANT!  How did they think of that?  Oh that’s right. Infinifolders.  They did a nice job though.

Parallax – DeepEnd

I really liked DeepEnd when I saw it, but never did install it. 3DBoard is like this too. Its cool and all .. I dont know, maybe I will install it later. However, Apple has taken this as inspiration for Parallax.  Its not exactly the same, but the same idea, just a different approach to the illusion.  Basically it give the feel that your icons are on a diffent dept level then your background. There is a good reason for this.  Since Apple’s icons have gone flat, you need this so that not everything is lost in a bleed of colors.Speaking of Icons

Flat Icons – FlatIcons

There are TONNES of flat design themes out there you can download via Jailbreak to give your iOS a cleaner, dare I say it, METRO look.  Finally Apple has decided to take this route (I’m not saying its better or worse) but what is annoying is you do not have a choice.  YOU WILL HAVE THE FLAT ICON DESIGN AND YOU WILL LOVE IT!  Right.  I think that is one of the key annoying things about Apple.  THEY decided the old icon are not good enough anymore and THEY decided what the new design is.  Having a choice of so many themes, I looked at the new design as yet just another Theme idea.  Its nice, some things I like, something things I do not.  But with Jailbreak, I get to CHOOSE what I want.

Tabs – Tabs+

So now iOS7 lets you have unlimited tabs.  Cool.  You can do that now using Tabs+.  Although I would bet Apple is better about memory with this.

…  I need to add more.  Suggestions anybody?

SemiRestore allows you to fix your device in a respring loop or in a unusable state, without losing your jailbreak. CoolStar has been working on a SSH version of SemiRestore as well as a OS X/Windows/Linux version on which you may connect your device up via USB to semi-restore.

This supports OS 5.0 to 6.1.2.  This is great for those who love to play around with various jailbreaks. If you get stuck in respring lock, which has happen to me, this will save your skin.

Your Welcome.

Here is cool little hack if you want other then piano sounds or there are certain notes that you want that are outside the keyboards range.  Change the sounds here.  The notes are saved as .mp3s in /Library/PianoPasscode.

Now if something goes wrong, do not panic. Try and see if it’ll boot into safe mode if you haven’t already. So, home + lock button hold down until screen goes down and apple logo comes back up, hold volume up botton as it’s loading to boot into safe mode.

Cation, if you chance the piano passcode from 1-7 and uninstall, THEN WRITE DOWN THE CODE YOU LAST USED. Even if you reinstalling piano passcode after removing, the past preference is saved. So you’ll have to remember the code you used last prior to uninstalling it. Worst case, go to /var/mobile/Library/Preferences and delete “com.jontelang.pianoprefs.plist”.  However, I’m sure this will be sorted soon if not already.

Another Cation, I have read that this does not work with intelliscreenX or BiteSMS quick compose/reply.  Someone suggested using the secure mode.

So, how to play it.  You know you only have 7 notes, so try to get something simple.  Also, this is your passcode, so scripting out a 15 key tunes is a little nuts.  I have a simple 5 note pass. (12-4-3-1)  Bonus points if someone knows this old 80’s 1 hit wonder song.

So here are a few tunes I say on Reddit. BTW, there are ONLY 7 notes.  No black keys, and not a full active.  Buy hey, Schroeder from Peanuts used to play Beethoven with painted on black keys.  If anyone else has a few cool tunes to share, please put them in comments, I’ll update the post.

Imperial March (333153153)

Zelda’s Lullaby (35212352)

song of healing from Majora’s Mask (76476476323)

Beetoven 5th (kinda) (66645553)

Batman (5544334455)

Mario Overworld (333135)

Epona’s Song (Zelda 64) (42142142121)

Bolero of Fire (Zelda 64) (42426464)

Some 4chan’er posted a comment last night on my story Play simcity 5 2013 in offline mode? The SimCity Jailbreak is only a matter of time now. Not what Maxis en-visioned.

It’s not a “jailbreak”(those are for Applefags). It’s called a crack you moron.

A fair point so elegantly stated.  I questioned his sanity and recommended he take up an unsafe hobby.  However, it is a fair point.  And if this person would had instead submitted a comment akin to what I’m about to write, I would have have engaged him and perhaps changed my mind.  Here is what he should have said.

First, let me take a shot at defining what is a Jailbreak:  A Jailbreak is a hack that removes limits placed on an OS and thus allows full access to the OS and hardware allowing programmers and SAAS providers to offer features and functions that would not be available under the restricted OS.   As with the examples I gave above, a jailbroken iPhone can do FAR more then a gated iPhone can.

Now lets apply this concept to SimCity.  Right now, people are working on a crack that will allow SimCity to run and save games offline. But why stop there?  One of the really annoying things that EA Maxis is doing is forcing people to pay for upgrades, new building types (like a marina for example) or more land.  This is pretty weak. Also as stated in my previous posts, EA wants you to be connected at all times to play the games.  What happens when the servers go down?  As it did.  Or somehow the games gets corrupted during saves, which it has. Or they want to update the game and you have to pay for it or it no longer works, which would not surprise me.  What is needed is a complete echo system where we can create and add mods like in SC4, but in addition, say you do want to connect to other cities, we should be able to do that as well ‘outside’ of EA’s servers. And perhaps come up with SAAS features that I have not even imagined yet.  Perhaps we could build military units and go to war against each other!  That would be interesting.  Focus on how do you keep you city running in war time. I would play that!

So is the coming SC5 hack going to be a crack or can we call it a jailbreak?  I expect most people will call it a crack, but I’m going to think about this a bit more before my next post on SimCity

And for the little 4chan’er, you bring up a good point.  Shame you are not educated enough to express it in any intelligent manner.  How is that playing in the traffic going for you?

Image from http://hubzdesign.com

OK, that was a really misleading title, but in a way, it sums up what I have observed in the last few years.  There are so many people with smart phones, that as I’m sitting on the train typing this, 85% of the people in my car are looking at phones or tablets, headphone in, not paying attention to anything around them.  Go to a concert, dinner, or sporting event and you will find a surprising number of people focusing in and out to interact with their phones. During the SuperBowl, I was shocked how many people at the party were spending more time looking at the phone then the game.  To be fair, the first half sucked, and it was a party after all!  Only a few ‘football fans’ were sitting there really watching the game at the beginning.  (It was holding BTW.  Refs missed it).  Lots of twitter action though.

I have had ‘smart’ phones since before smart phones. I had a palm III with an extension that allowed me to get text messages.  The service would then send updated news and scores.  Later I connected my palm III to my cell phone and was doing email and WAP surfing.  Not a great experience, but I could read the news.  Then came the ‘connected’ smartphones.  Then I got the Kerocera 6035, then the treo 650 and never looked back.  In 2007 there were plenty of connected smart phones out there and it seemed that most people either had a treo or a blackberry with a few windows phones here and there.  But still, take the subway or go to a party or what have you and it would be the exception, not the rule that someone was looking down at their phones.  Mostly because the actual length of time of the interaction was relatively small by today’s standards.

Then came the iPhone.

I got the very first batch of the  iPhone 1. Although at first I did not realize it, but this was a HUGE game changer.  However, once I jailbroke the device, the world of possibilities exploded.  I found I was spending 10 times as much time on the iPhone as I did the Treo. Why?  Because I enjoyed using it more!  That and maps.  Maps were mind blowing.  Anyway. The web browsing experience was like nothing I had ever seen on any other phone. That alone accounted for a huge uptick in usage. Also, the games were FAR better. Quake on the iPhone? Yea, that happened. AND I had an iPod now. I found I was listening to music more and because of jailbreak, I could load videos as well.  Also because of jailbreak, I could TAKE video, I could do live video broadcasting!  Every week there seemed to be yet another amazing thing I could do on this device. Whenever I took the phone out to do anything, A crowd of people would gather curious about it, and being excited about it, I would show people all the cool things it could do because of jailbreaking. I probably meet a lot of my friends during that time that way.

So fast forward to today and now a vast majority of everyone I know has a smart phone. iPhone being the most common with Android a close second. Just as when I first started using my iPhone, I find that I spend more time interacting with that device then I ever did with my treo or blackberry. The combination of pleasant web browsing, better email support, great apps, and instant video keep me engaged longer as it does other people.  Thus more heads looking down at screens on the train, heads bobbing to music with video, more games, more twitter and facebook.  Because of this, it seemed more quiet when I wait in line for things, the subway and the train are more quiet. On the plane, I like to work.  I used to pull out my laptop, plug in my headphone and thus I was guaranteed not to be bothered by someone who like to chat on flights.  Except that one time a cute girl was sitting next to me. That was ok.   Now when I fly, odds are they will be just as engaged with their devices as I am. And KIDS!  Please tell me ANY parent who is not grateful for this digital pacifier?

Is this a good thing or bad thing?  I dont know. On the one side we are more productive, (at least those who do work on these devices) informed, and entertained. (thus happy?)  On the bad side there are less chance encounters, less time ‘seeing’ what is around you. Less time in the real world because of time spent in the virtual world. Personally I’m happy with my new reality portal, mostly because I remember what it was like before, and try to remember to take breaks now and again. I also do not fear for the current generation that they have only known a world with a virtual portal always at their finder tips. I still see guys out playing ball, still see people interacting at parties, still see the occasional ‘chance’ conversation.  Although there are edge cases, I think people will learn balance once the ‘newness’ of this device wares off.

As humans we always seek interaction with other humans, having a device that demands our attention is a challenge, but one that will be balanced with the advantages that the device brings. And to tell the truth, I kinda like the quiet.

Jailbreaking, most commonly referenced on iPhones, is where you modify the phone’s software/firmware to allow it to run programs other then Approved by the creator of the phones operating system. For example, you can go to the Apple App store on your iPhone and download a number of apps for free or at a price.  The key is Apple controls the App store and thus decides what can and cannot be made available to you.  However, if you employ a software tool like ‘PwnageTool‘ you can download any app you want. There is even an app store just for jailbroken apps called Cydia. This is still legal although frowned upon by Apple and of course not at all supported.

Unlocking your iphone is where you use a software tool, normally created by the same people that created the jailbreaking tools, will allow you to use whatever phone service that is supported by your phone type.  So if you have a phone that takes a sim card, odd are you can use a sim card from another carrion in your country. Some phones are called ‘international’ phones and can support a number of broadbands, so if you unlock your phone, you can take it overseas and use it there.

THIS is what is going to be illegal tomorrow in the US for all new phones.  Now is this a big deal?  Not likely. If you buy say a sprint phone and need to use it overseas, odds are they will unlock the phone for you as a service for free. Also, if you unlocked an AT$T phone, would the phone police come after you?  Doubt it.  Not really worth their time.  However, they may go after people who provide this as a service or those that steal phones and unlock it so that it can be sold?  These guys may want to watch there backs.

There are two ways to change your default browser in iOS, the first one uses jailbreak… of course.  There are a few tools already that do this, but I just tried one that popped up on the great iphone jailbreak feed and used that.  Go to Cydia  and then tap Manage > Sources > Edit > Add, and type rpetri.ch/repo.  Once installed you can go to settings and select the browser you want.

Now if you do not have jailbreak, never fear, there is a way you can kinda do it.  Its kinda of a pain, but if you are really into Chrome, it may be worth it to you. A jailbreaker named Jon Abrams has published some JavaScript code that will allow any webpage to be opened in Chrome.  You are not exactly opening first hand in Chrome, but if you have a few pages you like to save on your desktop, then this will work.

Following is the step-by-step guide through which you can make this happen :-

Step 1: Copy this Javascript code to clipboard : javascript:location.href=”googlechrome”+location.href.substring(4);

Step 2: Open up Mobile Safari on your iOS device, navigate to any webpage, save it as a bookmark and give it the name ‘Open Chrome‘.

Step 3: Now select that saved bookmark and tap ‘Edit‘ option. Edit the saved bookmark by deleting the URL string from within it and paste in the copied JavaScript code string from step 1 and then save it.

Now whenever you want to open a link on Chrome, first Safari would open that link and upon it opening, select the option  bookmark and tap “Open Chrome” which would pass the current webpage to Chrome.

I have not tested this myself, so I’m taking the video at face value, but the basic here is you tether by launching a new HTML5 web app for the iPhone that lets you tether your 3G-enabled iPhone or iPad to any wireless-enabled device. Right now you can sign up for a free trial if you use blackberry or Android, $15  a year for iphone.

What makes this interesting, assuming this works well, is that Apple cannot remove this app from the app store because this is a webservice.  I’m sure they will try to find a way to block it, or sue Tether.  Regardless, this is clearly not the end of the story; we’ll keep you posted.  Till then, check out the Vid below.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GkbAiRMf40

Now here is the bad part of the kinda, if you have the iphone 4s or the ‘New’ ipad, forget about it since the A5, and A5x chip is much harder to jailbreak. Yet another reason to hold on to your iphone 4.  There is a jailbreak for iphone4s running the older iOS called  Absinthe. It can be downloaded from here for Mac and here for Windows.

Right now, there is not word on an untethered jailbreak for iOS5.1, however, normally when a tethered jailbreak is working, an untethered is not too far behind.

However, nothing on hacking the A5 chipset running iOS5.1.  You may have to settle in for a long wait.