Do you know that IPhone’s mobile application doesn’t allows to delete recent calls (I hate this , while all other basic phones has this basic function but the IPhone doesn’t!)? If you’re searching for an app that would allow to “Delete” a call in call list, here your search comes to an end. “ILogManager Basic” [...]

I have pushed v2.99.4 out which is mainly to add the enhanced icon selector screen. Those of you on older devices like 2g, 3g with lower memory may have experienced a lot of crashing trying to select an icon for a folder. The more icon addon packs you install, the worse the problem was.

This version of categories changes the behavior by separating the icons into icon packs. Now when you select an icon, you will be given a list of icon themes. You select that and only view the icons in that theme. This way less icons are loaded at a time and you should avoid running out of memory.

Here is how it looks:

To anyone making an icon pack, icon locations have moved, and existing icon packs need to be updated. I have updated all the ones I host. Icons go in /var/mobile/Library/Categories/Icons/packname folder. Please try to keep the icons in the folder under 100 and group them together if you have a lot of icons.

ScreenDimmer allows you to save battery life by automatically dimming your device’s screen after a pre-defined time; or if you wish by turning the backlight off. Most users suffer unnecessary battery drain while having their iPhone not on standby. Setting auto-lock to a short time makes it better, but is an inconvenience most of the [...]

Update: Appsidy will issue a refund to everyone that bought this in the next 5-7 days.

Today some developer released a “pay” package called “Vroom” which sounded too good to be true. Unfortunately, it is. Do not install this package. Not only does it not do what it claims, but it is also somewhat dangerous and will wear out your iPhone with limited use. Read below for details. (Note: Zodttd has removed this package from Cydia, but it may creep up somewhere else).

First, this package claims to speed up your iphone, increase your free memory by managing your daemons, and increase your battery usage. Sounds amazing right? Who wouldnt want this?

So what does it really do? It enables memory swap on your device.

What are the results of memory swap on your device? The free memory will appear to be better. That’s because it is using your disk as memory.  But that’s not all. This package is actually just a stolen file that is already on your device, renamed. So that means the “developer” decided to take a file off his iPhone, rename it, and sell it to you for $1.99.

Here is proof that the file is stolen. The original file is dynamic_pager that is provided by Apple in your /sbin folder. The new file from this app is called Vroom_data. Check out the md5sum of both proving that the files are identical:

BigBoss-iPhone:~ root# md5sum /sbin/dynamic_pager
e57afa9289e98fbd336eff14b996370a  /sbin/dynamic_pager
BigBoss-iPhone:~ root# md5sum /sbin/Vroom_data
e57afa9289e98fbd336eff14b996370a  /sbin/Vroom_data

Ok so the package is fraud.

But if you already have dynamic_pager, whats the harm in enabling it? The reason you don’t want memory swap enabled on your iPhone is this:

1) Memory swap will create a disk file on your flash disk. The CPU will need to spend I/O cycles reading and writing to this disk file. The I/O cycles will cost you battery because it takes battery power to do disk writes.

2) Flash disk has limited life span. They say some 100,000 writes per sector then it is dead. Having a swap file running will be quickly writing to the same sectors wearing out your flash disk.

3) Writing to a page file takes some CPU cycles.

Now, lets examine the developer’s claims and compare them to what the package actually does:

Claim #1: Increases memory.  Sort of. It creates a disk swap. Result is iphone will appear to have more memory. Some apps may crash less. This isn’t all bad. (I think I will release a free package that enables disk swap with a strong warning on it for those that want this).

Claim #2: Manages your daemons. FALSE / lies. It is the apple dynamic_pager file. It does only that. It does not manage your daemons.

Claim #3: It speeds up your device: FALSE. In fact, disk swap actually slows down the device because there are extra disk write used in order to access memory.

Claim #4: It provides better battery performance: FALSE. In fact it actually causes your battery to drain faster because of the disk write I/O cycles and the extra CPU required.

Claim #5: It allows your iPhone to boot at 2% rather than 15% battery. FALSE. This is built into the device not the iPhone OS. (Just like DFU mode). You cannot make changes to this.

Claim #6: It allows your iPhone to run until there is 1% battery rather than 5% before it shuts off. FALSE. See #5 above.

Finally, the package in Cydia was packaged incorrectly. Daemon plist was owned by user 1000. Launchctl will not load any daemon not owned by root. This caused the daemon to not start. With that bug, the paging system is not even enabled resulting in no change in performance! (LOL again). Anyone claiming to install this and finding a boost in speed, battery, etc is experiencing the placebo effect.

This all reminds me of the scam last year with the fake app I dont crash. At least that guy wasn’t trying to charge you money.

Note: enabling memory swap also seems to break google maps app.

So to all your 3.1.3 3GS users that cant jailbreak, this is a reminder to you. Update your computer’s hosts file right now to point to Saurik’s server. This should be a permanent change everyone that owns a 3GS should make. This allows you to down grade your firmware in the future. Even if you don’t care about jailbreaking, it is still a good idea. What if Apple releases a firmware that you hate in the future? This at least allows you the option to downgrade. It also guarantees your SHSH is stored.

While it’s unlikely 3.1.3 will ever be jailbroken since it is utterly worthless, it is still a good idea to get your SHSH stored. Once your hosts file is set up, anytime you restore, the signature is stored for you so that you can go back and restore to that firmware again in the future whether or not Apple decides you should or not.

To fix your computer, simply follow these steps:

OSX: Open the file /etc/hosts with a text editor.
Windows: open the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts with notepad:
Add the line:
74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

Note: on windows you may need to “run as” administrator your notepad to get the file to save. On OSX, you may need to use sudo or su to get to root user.

Autolock is sometimes annoying. Most users use to set a long time interval until locking or even have disabled autolocking. Only problem: this consumes a lot of battery, especially if autolocking is disabled. But now there will be an app for that: ScreenDimmer From now on it doesn’t matter if you forget to lock your [...]

Edit: Ok, updated the deb to 2.99.1. I guess it wasn’t properly code signed. Sorry. Link below is updated.

It’s been slow going due to my lack of time lately, but I have revamped the Categories GUI making room for some future enhancements and adding some things to it. We (ashikase and I, mainly ashikase) have also added some internal clean up code which will help on cases where the conversion did not go well from an older version to the latest version.

I am holding the release now for some initial bug reports or to see if there are any major issues. Download it here and use dpkg -i to install it. (If you dont know how to do this, you should wait for the release).

SBSchedule is a new program for your iPhone / iPod Touch which allows to setup profile groups of SBSettings toggles. You can then schedule those profiles to fire at a given time or activate them anywhere via a shortcut you can trigger. The possibilities here are limitless, as almost any on/off toggle you have for [...]

Firewall iP is a very powerful tool. It’s abilities have been extended since the first release and some documentation is needed. So I’ve created a short HowTo for every option in the app: Firewall iP How To In case you don’t already know about Firewall iP: Firewall iP is the only security app of it’s kind [...]

12 February 2010 Templates!! Scheduled SMS – Ability to schedule an SMS message for a future date and time, say your partners Birthday!! For Quick Compose, you can now configure your “Button Display Order”, “Displayed or Not” and “Gesture” preferences for the existing Open, Call and Send buttons. For Quick Compose, you can now also [...]

After about a year of using various methods to get it to work right, there is now a Data Toggle for SBSettings. The problem with disabling data (EDGE) is discussed in my post from last July. Today, Anderson Vulczak contacted me with a working solution to both disable and reenable Data on 3.0 iPhone OS. So we quickly put together a Data toggle and put it into Cydia. In short, this solution sets a bogus IP address, (1.1.1.0) to your data adapter’s IP address. This seems to kill EDGE / 3G without any battery drain issues reported in using other methods such as entering a bad APN.

I recommend that anyone that needs to disable Data use this rather than the EDGE toggle. The toggle should work also with BossPrefs as well.

We are calling this “Data” toggle because when it is off, it should kill the data connection entirely. 3g can be on and you will not be able to access your internet via your provider’s data connection. You will notice you get an IP address, but it is a bogus one that we assign (1.1.1.0).

The only downside is that to reenable data, we have to kill commcenter which can freeze the device for up to 15 seconds. (Should come back to life after that though).

Firewall iP, the first and only Firewall for the iPhone, got an update to 1.39 The changes are all in the background, but massive. It improves stability, memory usage and speed. The beta testers are all impressed how quick it is now, and you will be too. Changelog 1.39: – significantly improved speed – reduced memory ussage [...]

Just a note that Apple stopped signing 3.1.2 today. That means those of you 3gs or iPod touch 3 users that did not rush out and store your TSS in Cydia or Rock are screwed and cannot restore anything but 3.1.3. If you are a jailbreak user running a 3gs or ipod touch 3 (or later generation ipod touch 2) that has not stored the TSS in cydia, you should be very careful with what you do from now until the next jailbroken firmware. You will want to be careful in what you install to make sure you don’t have to restore for any reason. It would be a good idea to install open SSH and learn how to use it so that you can get in and fix any problems without a restore, also.

3g / 2g users need not worry as you dont need Apple to sign your firmware files.

Note: the warning applies only to 3gs, ipod touch 2 and 3 users. Regular 3g, 2g, and ipod touch 1 users can use redsn0w 0.9 to jailbreak 3.1.3.

iPhone OS 3.1.3 is now out from Apple. Supposedly it fixes some battery issues. (Doesn’t every release make things faster and fix battery problems?) There are no new features. The release only stops jailbreaks. That’s right. No new features.

DO NOT UPDATE YOU WILL BE SORRY.

Currently there is no jailbreak for this firmware. Unofficial sources have confirmed that they have patched up the method we used to jailbreak 3.1.2 so you will not be able to jailbreak. If you update you will lose all your jailbreak apps and will not be able to get them back. In other words, updating means you lose a lot of stuff in return for almost nothing back. In addition, there is no ETA on a jailbreak for 3.1.3. It may never be jailbroken. It is likely that they (dev team, geohot) will not waste another hole on 3.1.3. They will most likely hold it for the bigger update that will come with the release of the iPad and iPhone 4.0.

One more thing, as of right now, Apple is still signing 3.1.2 for you 3gs users but no one knows for how much longer they will be. Make sure you *rush* into Cydia or Rock and get your keys signed on the front page if you have not. This will make certain you can always restore 3.1.2 even in the future using Saurik’s server.

To summarize:

- Update adds NO NEW FEATURES, do not update.

- Update kills your jailbreak. Do not update.

- Get your 3gs 3.1.2 keys signed by Cydia/Rock now if you haven’t.

Read dev team info about this update here.

Now Available in CYDIA STORE! So Paypal & Amazon payments accepted! Changelog 3.0.1: fix – Templates / drafts bug caused by iPhoneDelivery conflict. fix – QuickReply when touching area between keyboard and QuickReply popup, sometimes resulting in unintentional hiding of keyboard. new – QuickReply keyboard toggle for more intuitive functionality (now you can also tap [...]