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The Future Of Jailbreaking: A Roundup Of What You Missed At JailbreakCon 2012 [Feature]

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JailbreakCon speakers gather for candid pic after the event.
JailbreakCon speakers gather for candid pic after the event.

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — JailbreakCon, the convention dedicated solely to jailbreaking and all that it entails, took place this past Saturday, September 29th. Hackers and developers from around the world gathered together at the South San Francisco Center to network and share ideas.

New projects were announced, and the future of jailbreaking iOS 6, the iPhone 5, and Apple TV was discussed. Don’t worry if you weren’t able to attend the event or watch the live stream—Cult of Mac has you covered. Here’s everything you missed at JailbreakCon in a nutshell:

Meet Pod2g, The Luckiest Jailbreak Hacker In The World [JailbreakCon]

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SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — To the world, he’s known only by his online pseudonym, “pod2g.” On Twitter, he has amassed over 340,000 followers. As one of the most respect iOS security researchers today, he frequently fields job interview requests from the biggest technology companies in the world. To the millions who jailbreak, he’s a living legend.

At JailbreakCon, pod2g gave a fascinating talk on his past experiences as a hacker and mastermind jailbreaker. He’s been immortalized by jailbreakers and the security research community, but in his own words he’s just a “lucky guy.”

Scale Gives Jailbreakers Ability To Easily Share Tunes In Apple’s Music App [JailbreakCon]

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Get native music sharing in the Music app with Scale on your jailbroken iPhone.
Get native music sharing in the Music app with Scale on your jailbroken iPhone.

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Apple has Twitter and Facebook integration in iOS 6, but for some reason you can’t easily share the music you’re listening to with friends. Apple has never been great at social music discovery (just ask Ping), but it’s surprising that there’s still no sharing integration in the native Music app. Sometimes you just want to tweet a song you’re enjoying or email the track listing to a loved one. That’s where Scale, a new jailbreak tweak for the iPhone, comes in.

Unveiled by Joshua Tucker at JailbreakCon, Scale adds a new button in the Music app for sharing your tunes over Twitter, Facebook, email, or iMessage.

A Jailbreaker’s Perspective On Developing For The App Store Vs. Cydia [JailbreakCon]

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The iOS App Store has seen unprecedented success since its launch in 2008. Apple undoubtedly boasts the largest and most vibrant app ecosystem in existence, but the App Store’s success has come at a cost.

Apple’s ‘walled garden’ approach gives the company complete control over which apps are published in the App Store. If an app doesn’t follow Apple’s playbook, it doesn’t get in. You may work for months and months on an app only to get it rejected. Publishing in the App Store can be a huge gamble. But if you get lucky, the payoff can be huge.

Aaron Ash kicked off JailbreakCon with a talk on developing for the App Store vs. Cydia, the alternative storefront for jailbreakers. Ash has an unusual perspective because he has seen incredibly success has a developer in Cydia, and he is also a developer in the App Store.

Cydia Paid $8 Million To Jailbreak Devs Last Year, 1.5 Million Devices Use The App Every Day [JailbreakCon]

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SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Jay ‘saurik’ Freeman just finished his presentation at JailbreakCon, and the creator of Cydia gave some interesting numbers regarding the jailbreak storefront. According to Freeman, Cydia developers were paid an estimated $8 million in sales last year. While it’s difficult for Freeman to specifically track the number of jailbroken iOS devices that are out in the wild, he said that an average 1.5 million users open Cydia each day.

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up, There Is No Jailbreak For iOS 6 [JailbreakCon]

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SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 —Jailbreak hacker extraordinaire Cyril, or “pod2g,” just took the stage to talk about jailbreak techniques and the future of iOS 6 jailbreaking. After giving a technical run-through of his past exploits in iOS 4 and 5, Cyril explained that there is no working untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.

Considering that this is the world’s only jailbreak convention, many speculated that Cyril and the Chronic Dev Team would announce an iOS 6 jailbreak today, but that is not the case.

Cyril opened the iOS 6 section of his talk with, “Will I release the iOS 6 jailbreak today? No! Of course not!”

Merge Clears Up Confusion By Combining iMessages From Multiple Device IDs Right In iOS [JailbreakCon]

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SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Since Apple added iMessage to the Mac in OS X, there’s even more ways to communicate between Apple devices. The iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac can all send and receive via iMessage, but one person usually sends from multiple addresses across devices. You may, for instance, send a message through your phone number on the iPhone, and then later send another through your Apple ID email address on the Mac.

Apple recently introduced iMessage contact unification in iOS 6, meaning that you can now be reached at both a phone number and email address on a device like the iPad. But there’s still an annoying problem with iMessage: messages from different IDs create new conversation threads. Conversations in the Messages app are not always up to date and properly synced between devices, and it can be confusing to track down which thread to reply to.

Developer and designer Joshua Tucker introduced a jailbreak tweak today called Merge. Tucker’s new tweak solves the aforementioned problem with an elegant, Apple-like solution.

Emblem Reinvents Push Notifications On The iPad [JailbreakCon]

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SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 — Joshua Tucker, a leading interaction and interface designer for iOS, just unveiled several new Cydia projects at JailbreakCon. After explaining his approach to design and past jailbreak tweaks, Tucker announced the release of Emblem, a complete rethinking of iOS push notifications. Emblem is available now in Cydia $1.99.

Emblem can best be described as the way Apple should have done notifications on the iPad. Instead of iPhone-like banners, Emblem introduces OS X-like banners with intuitive gestures and message handling.

Make Sure To Tune In For The Worldwide Jailbreak Convention Today [JailbreakCon]

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Many of the greatest iOS hackers in the world will be gathered in San Francisco this weekend.
Many of the greatest iOS hackers in the world will be gathered in San Francisco this weekend.

SAN FRANCISCO, JailbreakCon 2012 –The world’s first global jailbreak convention is today at the South San Francisco Center, and I’ll be on the show floor all day reporting for Cult of Mac. The greatest jailbreak hackers and developers in the world are gathered together, and there’s going to be plenty of announcements regarding the future of jailbreaking, iOS 6, and possibly even the iPhone 5.

The convention kicks off September 29th at 9 A.M. PST. Make sure to tune in for breaking coverage on Cult of Mac and the video livestream below!

The Evolution Of Jailbreaking: Looking Back At iOS 5 And Ahead At iOS 6 [Feature]

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Cydia remains a vibrant marketplace for home-brewed hacks and jailbreak apps, but how will the storefront evolve as iOS matures?
Cydia remains a vibrant marketplace for home-brewed hacks and jailbreak apps, but how will the storefront evolve as iOS matures?

Like Apple itself, jailbreak innovation is constantly evolving. Hackers and developers are continually pushing the boundaries of iOS. When Apple releases a major new version of iOS each year, jailbreakers immediately start finding new ways to enhance and improve upon the experience.

After iOS 5 was announced last summer, many believed that jailbreaking was starting to lose its appeal. The same questions are being asked this year with the release of iOS 6, mainly due to the fact that Apple continues to add and implement features that were previously exclusive to jailbreaking.

JailbreakCon, the only convention solely dedicated the jailbreak community, is happening this weekend in San Francisco, and Cult of Mac will be there. Jailbreaking iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 will be hot topics at the convention, and a huge underlying thread of conversation will be the future of jailbreaking itself.