iphone app advice

[Jake]

Use an app called black rain...jailbroke my 3GS yesterday and took a whole minute! Incredibly easy!

 

Same here and when i plugged into I tunes to put my old data back on it worked fine.

Jon

 

 

Hmmm, I'm just looking into JailBreaking at the mo. I saw this ...

 

if you have an iPhone 3GS, it’s important to note that BlackRa1n is a tethered jailbreak, which means that everytime you reboot your iPhone, you will have to plug it to your computer and launch BlackRa1n. Not so convenient but it does the job.

Is that right? Doesn't sound ideal.

[Dave17]

Mine wasn't tethered

[Jake]

Dave, Jon,

Are your 3GS iPhones quite new?

From what I'm reading, there are nasty prblems with 3GS that were made after week 40. ie they have serial numbers xxx41xxxxxx and above (the forth and fifth digits are the week number it was made)

There are shit-loads of people having problems with 3GS that have been JB'd with Blackra1n on here: http://www.iphonedownloadblog.com/2009/11/03/tutorial-jailbreak-iphone-3-1-2-blackra1n/

[Pig]

I'm on 3g not 3gs. I'm not sure if I'm tethered or not. Will try turning the phone off today and let u know

[Pete]

Jake - save yourself lots of hassle and don't do it.

The 3GS isn't totally sorted in terms of jailbreaking and on the next update you'll be fecked off because you can't upgrade without lots of faffing around.

 

Try the excellent Tom Tom alternative CoPilot Live - £26.99

 

Jailbreaking was a necessity for me to run my Orange SIM - it was fun to start with as loads of cool apps were only available via Cydia. Some 24 months later and the App Store has a wealth of decent apps so that advantage has gone. I run hardly anything that requires my phone to be Jailbroken and I wish I could just run unmangled firmwares.

[Dave17]

Nah your safe with black rain imo, my 3GS was bought the day it came out, so it'd be one of the first...even if black rain fails itunes will still allow you to restore it to factory settings.

[Pig]

I'm on 3g not 3gs. I'm not sure if I'm tethered or not. Will try turning the phone off today and let u know

 

Is fine turning it off

[AndrewOW]

I've just downloaded 'Paper Toss: World Tour', and it's just so addictive!

 

If you're the type that just wants to waste a few minutes without any complex instructions, it's perfect.

[Abz]

Jake - save yourself lots of hassle and don't do it.

The 3GS isn't totally sorted in terms of jailbreaking and on the next update you'll be fecked off because you can't upgrade without lots of faffing around.

 

Try the excellent Tom Tom alternative CoPilot Live - £26.99

 

Jailbreaking was a necessity for me to run my Orange SIM - it was fun to start with as loads of cool apps were only available via Cydia. Some 24 months later and the App Store has a wealth of decent apps so that advantage has gone. I run hardly anything that requires my phone to be Jailbroken and I wish I could just run unmangled firmwares.

 

I got my 3GS last week and have passed on my JB 2G iPhone to my little sister. I agree with your comment about Jailbreaking, was worth it then but not know. This mainly applies to the 3GS and it seems that we have quite a few bugs which seem to occur when jailbreaking the 3GS.

 

Pete have you used CoPilot live? I was going to install TomTom but was not very happy with the £60 price for the app, nearly the same cost as my TomTom! Might be installing this tonight as could do with Navi software to hand, rather than carry one in the car.

[Harris25]

you must get harbour master.....!!!!

[supra steveo]

my i-phone should be getting delivered today

[Matt H]

you must get harbour master.....!!!!

 

I noticed that! Might give it a go.

 

Doodle Jump is my fav. Costs 59p

 

 

 

 

As for this jailbreaking business. I've had my Iphone for a number of weeks now and can't imagine what I would want to do it for; or better put, what advantages I would get.

 

The few decent applications that are worth having are free and the rest are pence.

 

Is there anything that this Jailbreaking business does that is without a doubt 'a must'?

[Pixelfill]

I noticed that! Might give it a go.

 

Doodle Jump is my fav. Costs 59p

 

 

 

 

As for this jailbreaking business. I've had my Iphone for a number of weeks now and can't imagine what I would want to do it for. Or better, put what advantages I would get.

 

The few decent applications that are worth having are free, and the rest are pence.

 

Is there anything that this Jailbreaking business does that is without a doubt 'a must'?

 

I have to agree with Matt, for most people I can't really see the benefit of jailbreaking. Having access to "less mainstream" applications, like unix tools etc maybe.

 

It does provide access to some applications which won't make Apple's list of "approved" applications, but by the same token also potentially opens your phone up to vulnerabilities.

 

However for me it was an essential part of unlocking the phone for use on my network. So I was left with no choice.

 

Mike

[kash]

Fieldrunners game is brilliant, very adictive

 

Get League of Legends.... basicly the same thing as Fieldrunners, but its better and free

[Matt H]

Well here are the apps that I've gone for so far:

 

Skype (free)- Talk over the net to other Skype so you don't use your minutes

 

Whatsapp (paid) - Same as the above but for text. Shows up just like your normal iphone message set up

 

Orange Weds (free) - Film and Cinema info, plus 241 system for orange customers

 

Photobucket (free) - photobucket on your mobile. Works great and allows quick and easy upload and download to / from your phone

 

Flixster (free) - Brilliant film and cinema app

 

Rotton Tomoatoes (free) - Film reference app like the website

 

Around me (can't remember if I paid for this? Think it's free) - A massive list of those things around your location - Atms, pubs, restraunts etc

 

Natwest (free) - Bit disappointing in function. It's slow and only really gives you your balance and last few transactions.

 

Google earth (free) - for your mobile

 

bump (free) - share pics and files with your mates really easy.

 

rotator (free) - rotate pictures! simple but useful

 

Convert Units (free) - pretty good, but it's free so you can't complain.

 

XE Currency convertor (free) - Simple and functional

 

TV guide (free) - really functional and imformative. lets you select your favourite channels and remove the ones you don't want too

 

iCar Radio lite (free) - one of the disappointing thigns about the iphone is that it doesn't have an FM radio tuner, but this streams radio over the internet and has radio 1 listed. Altough there's a ridiculous number of stations, listening to the radio over your iphone is flawed in the first place. This lite option doesn't allow you to select 'fav' stations, maybe the paid one does?

 

Flashlight lite (free). Works just the same as the paid ones, but you don't have to pay the price to have loads of different silly light outputs, when the only one you're going to use if you actually needed to is the full screen light (which you get).

 

Decibel (59p) - Disappointing as it only reads to 105db. Picks up everything close so often gives false readings

 

Speed test (free) - how fast is your connection at any given time? Revealing app! works well

 

Disc Space (free) - simply how much space used and is free on your iphone

 

Battery (free) - in general it's pointless. You know how much battery you have left, and do you really need a breakdown of what you can do with it? Works well, but questionable usage.

 

Appbox lite (free) - great selection of 'toolbox' apps including date calcs. Appbox Pro looks really good and I'll probably buy that for the cost of 59p

 

Fluid (free) - really nice app to have. very cool

 

Coin Toss Free (free) - pretty boring and badly put together, but it's free and works so I quess not the end of the world. If you need to toss a coin, it's for you.

 

Games:

 

Doodlejump (59p) - best game so far

Finger Physics (Free and not free) - the free version has loads of levels which is good. Full version has sheds loads.

Roller Coaster Builder (free and not free) - Another fun app that I tried then bought the full version

Fling (free and not free) - fun game making use of the touch screen facility. Free version has bugger all on it. Full version is worth the price.

 

None App Weblink:

 

TVcatchup - Streams live tv from loads of chanels over your phone. Brilliantly built for the iphone. Obviously free.

[martini]

As for this jailbreaking business. I've had my Iphone for a number of weeks now and can't imagine what I would want to do it for; or better put, what advantages I would get.

 

I wouldn't bother attempting it if I were you.

 

There are many advantages. SBS settings (some day this will be integrated into the OS officially as it's a joke how many clicks it takes to turn off wifi, BT or airplane mode), there's a very nice copy and paste addon which allows you to instantly copy all, paste all, and have templates and so on, there's the emoji but unless you are emailing Japan a lot I wouldn't bother.

 

For most users it really would be a waste of time. Just as, for most road users, an inexpensive little FWD with a radio and heating will suffice.

[AndrewOW]

Talking Carl. Hilarious!

[Abz]

Matt is it worth creating a thread or updating the first page with what you have in post 65. The list of the application's with a small comment is brilliant! An I know we have quite a few iPhone users. Could you maybe add the below to the list?:

 

London Camera's (Free)

Great application if you live in London and want to see what traffic is like en-route. You can check TFL camera's before you leave home. Not all the camera's work, I'd say 50% do, though you do have quite a selection. These are still images BTW.

 

iFooty (Free)

One of the best if not thee best football application, you get league information including football news & live results of games!

 

RedLaser (£1.19)

Scan a book or something with a barcode (not your food shopping) and it goes to the tinternet & finds you the product at a cheaper price! Found one of the Cisco network books which cost £70 could have been brought for £30 online!

 

0870 (Free)

Used this today while at my sisters house. You enter a premium 0870 or 0845 number & it tries and finds a landline which you then will cost you only your minutes instead of 35p a minute! As soon as you put in the number & hit call it finds the number within 5 seconds & then gives you the option to call it.

 

ColorSplash (£1.19)

You take a photo or choose from your album. It colours it grey & then you touch on the area you want in colour. I think it is a brilliant application & I have made some great photo's using this app!

 

BMW M Power Meter (Free)

Just installed this today, it monitors speed, distance & both lateral & forward G! I had it on today & when I booted it came up with a message "Amazing!" "Wow, Do you already own a M powered BMW?"

 

Co-Pilot (£26.99)

Didn't want to pay £60 for some TomTom software, I have a TomTom but it is shared between the family. I thought if I had it on my 3GS then it would be very helpful and saves me using the family one. I've used it twice now & so far I am very impressed indeed! I'll do a proper review on this once I get a chance, though very recommended! The speed of the thing picking up GPS is enough reason to buy it!

[Dash Rendar]

I've had my iPhone 3GS for two days now. I feel like I've sold my soul to Satan, as I've always hated Apple as a company and swore over ten years ago that I'd never buy one of their products. But, sadly, the iPhone really is too good to be ignored.

 

I found the Apple restrictions to be a real PITA, especially for trivial things like changing the sounds on your phone for certain functions, or customising the Springboard.

 

So I did the Blackra1n jailbreak this evening. Wow, it doesn't get any easier than that!

 

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, it is a tethered jailbreak, so a word of warning... If you install any apps that require your phone to be restarted, the phone will fail to reboot and tell you to plug it into iTunes. If you then plug into iTunes, iTunes tells you the iPhone is running in 'recovery mode' and that a restore is required. Don't panic! You just need to run Blackra1n again to restore the jailbreak and the phone will restart fine. It freaked me out the first time this happened.

 

Why did I want to jailbreak?

 

Well, mainly so that I could access the filesystem over FTP to allow me to further customise the phone.

 

I have a few tips for anyone else completely new to the iPhone that wants to follow in my footsteps. What follows is everything I've learned about modding an iPhone this evening. (I'm still obviously a noob, but we all have to start somewhere!)

 

1. Jailbreak the phone with Blackra1n. It really is a single-click app on the PC. (No idea about the Mac version...) Obviously, the phone must be connected when you run it!

 

2. Run the Blackra1n app that subsequently appears on your phone. This app will allow you to install Cydia. Cydia will allow you to install apps that don't go through the iTunes route.

 

3. Install OpenSSH. This runs as a service on the phone, and allows you remote file system access. The easiest way is to use FTP (e.g. Filezilla), with the protocol set to SFTP. Note that to access the phone via FTP, the username is 'root', and the password is 'alpine'. (You can easily get the IP address of your phone from your router's web admin page, assuming you're using WiFi.)

 

4. Install MobileTerminal. This gives you console access. Even if you don't plan on doing further, you should at least install this to allow you to change the root password to something other than 'alpine', unless you want someone *else* hacking your phone.

 

> su root (password is currently 'alpine')

> passwd (enter your new password twice as prompted)

 

5. Install SBSettings. This allows you to quickly view various settings about your phone (e.g. IP address), but also allows you to quickly toggle features like Bluetooth or wireless.

 

[You will need to re-run Blackra1n after installing this. So don't worry when it doesn't boot up!]

 

6. Install Winterboard. This is a customisation/skinning app. You can then perform simple customisations, or even make your own skin. But why bother? There are great skins available for download already. Check out Blue Thunder. It looks awesome, and it's *incredibly* easy to skin your phone.

 

Note... all the above apps are free and installed through Cydia.

 

Furthermore, now you've got FTP, you can change the default sounds. E.g. to change the sounds for new mail notification, or SMS notification, simply replace the following files using FTP:

 

/System/Library/Audio/UISounds/new-mail.caf

/System/Library/Audio/UISounds/sms-receivedx.caf, where x is 1 to 6

 

Note that you should convert/copy your own wav or mp3 files to AIF format first, which is easily done through iTunes. (Ensure Edit -> Prefs -> General -> Import is set to AIF first.) Then, just rename the files to match the ones you want to overwrite on the phone. I'd backup the originals on the phone, just in case...)

 

Similarly, if you want to put on your own ringtones, I do it through FTP, as I find the synchronising in iTunes is p1ss-poor for ringtones. Again, identifiy the tracks you want to use, and convert/copy them to AAC in iTunes. (Ensure Edit -> Prefs -> General -> Import is set to AAC first.) Drag the new file out of iTunes onto your desktop and renaming the extension from .m4a to .m4r. Now, all you need to do is FTP your newly made ringtones into /Library/Ringtones.

 

At a glance, it may sound more tricky that iTunes, but it really is quick once you've done it a couple of times.

 

That's it for all the hacky stuff. As for regular apps that can be installed through iTunes or Cydia, in addition to what people have already mentioned, I would recommend:

 

* Alarm Clock Pro - only a few pence, but it allows you to set multiple alarms on various schedules, playing from your own music/playlists, with customisable snooze and build in torch. It's very good.

 

* Clock Radio Free - A great app that gives you access to thousands of digital radio stations... Everyone loves .977 - 'The 80s channel', right?

 

* IM+ Lite - A free multiprotocol messenger app, so if you use Yahoo Messenger, MSN, whatever, then this is for you.

 

* Shazam - Cool app that 'listens' to any music playing from an external source, and tells you what the track is!

 

* TV Guide UK - obvious...

 

* xGPS (from Cydia). Free SatNav with turn-by-turn voice instructions! It hooks into Google Maps. I haven't used it yet, but it does look very good.

[Whitesupraboy2]

This is the easiest app to browse your mobile

 

http://www.iphone-explorer.com/

 

Jailbroken mobiles have access to addiotnal areas of the file structure.

[Whitesupraboy2]

Jsut to add to Dash great post.

 

Grilfriend got one on friday and ive jailbroken it. Easy peasy and i even tested turning it off. When installing apps need a restart,just leave it connected to PC with blackra1n running and it just automatically does the job each time its required and phone boots up.

 

Best app ive found for jailbroken phones

 

backgrounder...I can now run more then 1 app, she is forgetfull so if in middle of writing a txt she can leave the messaging app and it will keep running, go off to safari or whatever she wanted to look at come back and carry on at the part written message. Pause a game app, go off write a txt come back and carry on playing.

[Kopite]

backgrounder...I can now run more then 1 app, she is forgetfull so if in middle of writing a txt she can leave the messaging app and it will keep running, go off to safari or whatever she wanted to look at come back and carry on at the part written message. Pause a game app, go off write a txt come back and carry on playing.

 

Let me know how she gets on with this mate.

The only problem I had with jailbreaking is "something", unsure what it was yet, screwed ,my battery life. Fully charged phone at 8am would be dead by say 12pm from sitting on a table. I suspected backgrounder so removed it as well as some other cydia based things, changed the theme back to default and the problem went. I still don't know what it was so be interesting to see if Backgrounder fooks the battery life

[Whitesupraboy2]

will do mate,

 

she has 1 theme (complete theme) but has already learnt to use sbsettings to turn off 3G,SSH and wifi off when not needed. She's also turning off shh and killing processes. Think it should last at least 24 hours this way.....i hope

[Kopite]

will do mate,

 

she has 1 theme (complete theme) but has already learnt to use sbsettings to turn off 3G,SSH and wifi off when not needed. She's also turning off shh and killing processes. Think it should last at least 24 hours this way.....i hope

 

Cool, yeah even with all those diasabled i was seein no battery life. Let me know how it goes. The theme i had was a standard optional theme too, nothing downloaded :s

 

One thing i did like from Cydia was "tap to unlock" which replaces that annoying slider

[AndrewOW]

Best app ive found for jailbroken phones

 

backgrounder...I can now run more then 1 app, she is forgetfull so if in middle of writing a txt she can leave the messaging app and it will keep running, go off to safari or whatever she wanted to look at come back and carry on at the part written message. Pause a game app, go off write a txt come back and carry on playing.

 

 

You can do that anyway, and for any one text you're writing at the time. Just go back to the 'chat' style message, or the person you're messaging, and the text will still be there as long as you haven't turned the phone off in the meantime.