iCan : AppAdvice's Guide To Unleash Your iPhone's Full Power
October 28, 2009
Verizon's attack against the iPhone might sound justified at first sight, but your iPhone is capable of doing much more than what Apple planned it to. Thanks to Jailbreaking, developers from all around the world are able to come up with new capabilities for you favorite iDevice and it is now easier than ever to take advantage of them. Here is our guide featuring the most popular and useful solutions that can improve your iPhone and make your life even easier. For starters you're gonna need to jailbreak your device and it would be good to have a basic idea of how to use cydia, then everything should go pretty smoothly.
iCan Customize
To make your iPhone/iPod Touch feel like your very own there are a number of Cydia apps to help. From changing the look, to running widgets allowing additional functionality, there is something for everyone looking to customize. Let's look at a trio of apps to help us start the unique-ification
Winterboard:
- Ability to theme almost any aspect of the user interface simply. Change icon images, background image, sounds, etc.
- Hundreds of ready made themes available, both free and paid that work with Winterboard app
- After a brief refresh of the SpringBoard your iPhone will look like no other iPhone in your neighborhood.
- Check out our Winterboard How-To Here.
sbSettings:
- sbSettings allows quick access to system toggles.
- Swipe your finger across the clock on the top of the screen and a pull down appears allowing you to turn on/off wifi, 3g, edge, ssh, airplane mode, or even hide and show icons on the SpringBoard.
- Lots of plugins available for sbSettings to increase it's usability for you.
Categories:
- Categories is a tool for those of you who have too many icons on your SpringBoard
- Allows you to create folders that you can organize your apps into.
- After clicking the folder, all the apps appear from that category
- See our review for more information.
iCan run simultaneous apps
Apple prevented developers from running applications in the background for the sake of preserving iPhone's resources and keep the device snappy.
Well, if you don't want Apple to dictate you how to use your iPhone, it is entirely possible to allow multi-tasking using simple tools like Backgrounder and Kirikae.
Backgrounder is a simple app which lets you, well, BACKGROUND your apps. If you're tired of your favorite radio app getting shut off when you click the home button, you need backgrounder. Backgrounder lets you enable shortcuts to "background" an app temporarily or keep it on permanently. Kirikae, is another simple and powerful tool that lets you quickly switch from task to task. Use these 2 apps together to make mulitasking an iPhone reality.
Step 1: Launch Cydia.
Step 2: Go to search (lower right side) and look for "backgrounder", select the second one (3.x version) press install then confirm. Once it's done press "Restart SpringBoard" and wait until it goes back to your home screen.
Step 3: Launch Cydia again, go to search, this time we're gonna look for "kirikae", select it, install and confirm. Once it's done press "Restart SpringBoard" and wait until you come back to your home screen.
You're done.
Now any time you double click the home button you'll have a task manager come up. At the top you have the application you're currently on and lower the ones that are running in the back.
You can close the task manager by clicking the home button once or decide to go to the springboard by pressing springboard (which will put the application you're currently on in the background). You can switch to another app that is already running by directly selecting it or slide on the ones you wanna close and press quit.
iCan tether anywhere
If your carrier doesn't allow tethering you can pretty easily overcome the issue Tethering patch Simply add the iFoneguide repository to cydia (click for more help) and install "Tethering Patch 3GS" (or "Tethering Patch 3G" depending on your phone model) Manual Patch You don't trust automated scripts ? Do the whole patching yourself by following our guide.iCan make Sykpe calls over 3G
Calling with the Skype app over 3G is a really nice extra, especially if you often call overseas.
VoIPover3G
VoIPover3G is a free little app that will trick Skype into thinking you're on a wireless network.
3G Unrestrictor
3G Unrestrictor is a more advanced app that let's you select which apps you wanna affect. On cydia for $2.
