3:53 am, October 16th, 2009, Tim Cox
Last week, we published The Complete Guide to Unlocking and Jailbreaking your iPhone and iPod Touch. Here’s a list of must have apps and tweaks that you’ve enabled by following our guide. Through Cydia, you can download and install each item below and add new functionality and usefulness to your iPhone. I give you the Top Ten Must Have iPhone Jailbreak Apps:
10. Kirikae
I know I’ve said this before, but Kirikae is really a must have app. It’s command tab for your iPhone. Kirikae can clean up your free memory, keep track of your favorite apps, and run apps in the background in a very iPhone like way.
Who cares if it’s a bit buggy and you might have to restart your phone every once in a a while. A fix will come in a future update. Be free now, even if free is a bit buggy.
9. SpringBoard Settings and the Apple Congruency Theme
Sure, I can order Chipotle on my iPhone while I’m getting into my car and by the time I get there my food is hot, ready and paid for. But I will still rethink my 2 year commitment to this device if I have to drill down four menus to turn off Bluetooth.
SpringBoard Settings is quick and easy access to commonly used settings and useful tweaks. Yes, iPhone users can easily adjust the brightness of their screen, turn on wifi, and hide app icons by swiping the status bar in Springboard.
SBSettings also has an extra doc for sparsely used apps, and you can enable things like a status bar memory or numeric wifi indicator.
8. Action Menu Plus Pack
Iphone Firmware 3.0 brought us copy and paste, and as always the jailbreak community is one step ahead.
Action Menu with Plus Pack brings clipboard history, favorite clippings, phone dialer, bottom of page scrolling and clipboard twitter to your copy and paste menu.
This thing changed my life when I needed to mail 5 photos to a friend. I went into my photo gallery and copied each one, opened up and email and pasted them using the Action Menu’s clipboard history feature. It’s like I was using a Blackberry or something.
7. Cycorder
Record video on your iPhone and iPhone 3g with Cycorder. This app is the single reason why I didn’t upgrade to the 3GS (Now that augmented reality stuff is out I’m wishing I had).
You don’t need a 3GS to record video on your iPhone which makes me wonder why the 3.0 Firmware upgrade didn’t include this feature for all of the iPhone family members.
You can even upload your videos to Facebook and Twitter using Pixelpipe and PPVideo Enabler which is also available through Cydia. Also comes in handy when you want your own Dash Cam.
6. GV Mobile
So you can’t get GV Mobile in the App Store anymore, but that’s why you jailbreaked in the first place, amirite?
Just using Google Voice for text messaging this month means I can downgrade my plan and save $20.
The benefits of Google Voice outweigh the scariness of Google owning yet another part of your life. Hopefully Apple will allow Google’s own GV app into their store, but for now jailbreaking brings you another forbidden App Store item.
5. SpotBright
Not only are contacts and emails accessible with Spotlight, but launch you can also launch your apps with the SpotBright Spotlight tweak.
When you use SBSettings to hide apps, SpotBright still finds and launches them. It also keeps a list of your recently launched apps below the searchbar.
I rarely use the recently launched items, but I hide my most unused apps and launch them when I need them so SpotBright is a must have.
4. Veency
Use your iPhone from your desktop! There are tons of creative uses for this app, including accessing your iPhone when you’re just too lazy to get up and get it.
I use my iPhone as a desk calendar and then make calls through my bluetooth headset so I don’t have to direct my attention away from my work. I’m just kidding I don’t do that. That would be pathetic, but it’s possible with Veency.
3. 3G Unrestrictor
3G Unrestrictor opens up the data usage restriction that hinders most iPhone apps from downloading large files over 3G. I run into this problem with iTunes.app, occasionally in the App Store, and all the time with VoIP.
Remember when I told you about making free calls with Fring and Google Voice? You can do that without a wifi connection using 3G Unrestrictor. To free any app from Apple/AT&T’s silly rules, open 3G Unrestrictor and add that app.
2. PDANet
Tethering may have been nixed with the 3.1.2 update, but you can still use PDANet to tether your iPhone to your Mac over wi-fi. Create a password protected network with your laptop, connect to it with your iPhone and open up PDANet.
It may be an extra step, but PDANet is currently the only option for tethering at this point. This jailbreak app is free if you only want to access “http://” urls (no https:// etc. ). You can purchase the full version of PDANet for $29.
1. MultiIconMover
Be careful not to confuse this app with paid app in Cydia. MultiIconMover is free and the best way to move your apps around. In fact, every time I use MIM I think, “Why didn’t Apple think of this?” I guess they were too busy coming up with features for other life changing devices.
Simply make your icons squiggle, touch the ones you want to move to a different page then go to that page and hit the home button. The checked apps fill the vacant spaces on that page and you can check more apps. Hit the home button again to exit jiggly mode. Brilliant.
Posted by Tim Cox in News, Reviews, iPhone | Comment on this article
I haven't jail broken my iPhone but this is a pretty compelling argument for it.
