Cydia

Cydia creator takes a blow in App Store lawsuit against Apple

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Cydia
But it's not quite over yet.
Photo: Alex Heath/Cult of Mac

A U.S. district judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against Apple by Cydia creator Jay Freeman . Filed last year, the complaint alleges that Apple maintains an illegal monopoly over app distribution on iOS.

Cydia, which launched in 2008, became the first App Store alternative for iPhone and iPad, providing access to thousands of unauthorized downloads. However, you can only access it if you have a jailbroken device.

First iPhone jailbreak in years made possible by Apple security screwup

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Cydia
We haven't Cydia on our iPhones in forever.
Photo: Alex Heath

Jailbreaking your up-to-date iPhone and iPad is finally possible again for the first time in years thanks to a big software goof by Apple.

Security researcher Pwn20wnd published a full jailbreak for iOS 12.4 today after discovering that Apple accidentally unpatched a security flaw in iOS 12.4 that it had fixed in iOS 12.3. The jailbreak makes it possible to completely customize nearly all aspects of your iPhone and iPad software, but there are some risks too.

Find out if iOS 11 jailbreak is right for you

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Cydia jailbreak
Cydia is now compatible with iOS 11. Here’s which tweaks you can use.
Photo: Cydia

iOS 11 finally has its first jailbreak with Cydia support. If you’re yet to use our guide to installing Electra 1.0.1, which supports all of Apple’s latest devices, you need to check out this list of Cydia apps and tweaks compatible with iOS 11 to find out if it’s still worth it.

The useful iPhone X gestures you haven’t heard about, on The CultCast

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The CultCast: The best 30-minute Apple podcast you'll hear anywhere.
Let us reveal to you the hidden gestures.
Image: YSR50/Twitter

This week’s CultCast is a hot one! We discuss: The useful iPhone X gestures you haven’t heard about; why you need to check out Apple’s new YouTube channel; why folks are mad as heck about Apple Watch 3’s data prices. Plus, it’s the end of an era: Jailbreaking is dead. (And stay tuned for our favorite movies of 2017.)

Big Cydia sources shut down as jailbreaking dies out

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Cydia jailbreak
Cydia is now compatible with iOS 11. Here’s which tweaks you can use.
Photo: Cydia

Two of Cydia’s largest repositories have been shutdown as jailbreaking dies out. ModMy and ZodTTD are no longer available, leaving BigBoss as the only major source still available to those who want apps and tweaks you can’t find in the App Store.

Jailbreaking pioneers say iPhone jailbreaking is dead

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Jay
Cydia creator Jay Freeman says he doesn't recommend jailbreaking your iPhone anymore.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

It’s been months since the last iOS 10 jailbreak has been released. And according to the guys that originally made jailbreaking a huge craze, you shouldn’t get your hopes up about jailbreaking your iPhone ever again.

In fact, even if you could jailbreak iOS 10, Jay Freeman — the guy who invented Cydia, which was the App Store before the App Store was the App Store — says he doesn’t recommend it.

Jailbreaking is officially dead.

Soap star’s secret revealed! She jailbreaks.

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When she's not on set, actress Melissa Archer dabbles in jailbreaking.
When she's not on set, actress Melissa Archer dabbles in jailbreaking.
Photo courtesy of Melissa Archer

Cult of Mac 2.0 bugThis is the third story in a three-part series on jailbreaking iOS.

When Melissa Archer learned she would die at the hands of a serial killer, she made one last request: “I asked if I could have a death scene because I am a nerd.”

Her death had significance. It meant a long run as a mainstay and fan favorite of daytime soap operas was about to go on hiatus. It also meant she would have more time to devote to another passion — jailbreaking iPhones and inventing new features.

iOS 10 jailbreak team makes key breakthrough

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Cydia-iOS-10
Squint hard enough and you'll see the Cydia icon.
Photo: Mosecon

With every iOS update, Apple makes it harder for hackers to jailbreak its software — but it seems there’s still plenty of work to be done.

At the Mobile Security Conference (MOSEC) in Shanghai today, Chinese jailbreak team Pangu revealed it already has Cydia running under iOS 10.

How to animate iOS 9’s app icons

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Here's how to animated iOS's app icons.
Here's how to animate iOS app icons on your homescreen.
Photo: Apple

By default, iOS doesn’t support animated icons, although there are a few exceptions: the Clock app, for example, or the way the Settings icon used to animate when you were downloading an OTA update. But wouldn’t it be great if every icon on your homescreen animated? Yes, it would … but unfortunately, only jailbreakers can make that happen.

Keep iOS 9 Low Power Mode on indefinitely with this jailbreak tweak

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ios-9-beta-2-battery-low-power-mode
iOS 9's Low Power Mode significantly reduces iPhone battery drain.
Photo: George Tinari/Cult of Mac

Low Battery Mode might be my favorite thing about iOS 9. It radically improves battery life on an iPhone when your device dips down to 20%.

The only problem? Once your iPhone charges a sufficient amount, Low Battery Mode automatically switches off. Which is a shame, because if you kept Low Battery Mode on all the time, you could eke out hours more battery life from iOS.

Sadly, iOS 9 doesn’t let you keep Low Battery Mode on all the time. But if you’ve got a jailbroken device? That functionality is just an install away.

Some iPhone jailbreakers are in for a nasty surprise

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iPhon
iPhon
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

More than a quarter-million Apple users from 18 different countries had accounts stolen after they made themselves vulnerable by jailbreaking their devices, researchers announced today.

The theft represents the largest known theft of Apple accounts caused by malware, according to Palo Alto Networks, adding further caution to Apple users to avoid installing programs not meant for iPhones and iPads.

#ProTip: The upside to jailbreaking your iPhone

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Jay
Jay "saurik" Freeman, maker of Cydia, says there are legit reasons to jailbreak your iPhone.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac is at WWDC and AltConf, fishing for ProTips. The world’s biggest gathering of Apple developers is a rich hunting ground filled with alpha geeks, experts par excellence. What’s a ProTip? A ProTip is a nugget of knowledge, a little bit of expertise from someone in the know — a pro.

SAN FRANCISCO — Has Apple ever contacted you? This is one of two questions gray-hat hacker Jay “saurik” Freeman gets asked all the time. It happens so often, he has thought about putting it on a T-shirt.

“I have been contacted by Apple twice — once about a job and the other time a 50-page response to request sent to the copyright office,” he told Cult of Mac after his AltConf presentation on copyright in the digital era.

Jailbreak superstar Comex is working on a Cydia alternative

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Photo: Cult of Mac
Photo: Cult of Mac

Since the very earliest days of jailbreaking, Cydia has been the go-to source for jailbreak-specific tweaks and apps. What makes tweaks work is the Cydia Substrate, low-level software written by Cydia founder Saurik that lets third-party programmers hook into the iOS operating system in ways not endorsed by Apple. But Cydia Substrate is closed-source, which makes it harder for alternative jailbreak stores to compete with Cydia.

That could soon change, though. Jailbreak superstar Comex — the developer of JailbreakMe, and a former programmer at Apple — is working on an alternative to Cydia Substrate.