tweaks
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iOS 8's silent war against jailbreaking
Apple isn't dumb. The company knows users jailbreak their devices, but more importantly than that, they know exactly why. There are those who jailbreak to use apps that simply would never be approved for sale on the App Store -- and that's a group that Apple has little chance of luring back to the "vanilla" side of iOS -- but there's also a huge segment of the jailbreaking community that voids their warranties for much more innocuous reasons. That's where iOS 8 comes in. Apple plugged some crucial jailbreak holes with iOS 7 and its updates, effectively shuttering widespread jailbreaking on devices updated to 7.1.0 or 7.1.1. Top jailbreakers have instead turned their attention to iOS 8, hoping to have better luck with the big annual update that everyone will be downloading. But along with taping off any remaining vulnerabilities that Apple's team might already know about, it's doing something even more crushing to the jailbreak movement: replicating the most popular jailbreak features and thereby giving many would-be jailbreakers no reason to even consider it. For starters, third party keyboards are a huge addition. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard people say that the only reason they jailbreak is because they can't stand the iPhone or iPad keyboard. But rather than just introducing its own variations on the theme, Apple is giving developers the chance to do whatever they want with the phone's text input. SwiftKey is already on board, and many more developers are sure to follow. Next are widgets, which Apple revealed will appear in the pull-down notification center. This is a feature many Android users tout as a reason to devote themselves to Google's OS, and one that jailbreakers have adored for a long time. No, the widgets won't appear directly on the home screen -- which may still be a sticking point for some -- but Apple embracing them at all is certainly a big win for anyone who has installed a jailbreak specifically for that feature. And there's plenty more: The new QuickReply feature makes jailbreak tweaks like Auki and Couria essentially obsolete, allowing you to instantly reply to messages from the notification without navigating to a specific app. Opening up Touch ID for third party apps means that jailbreak-only password fillers like iTouchSecure -- which autofills passwords based on Touch ID input -- are now dead in the water. Giving Siri the ability to keep an ear open for a command (when plugged in) without tapping the home button mimics the jailbreak-only OkSiri tweak. iOS 8's battery usage breakdown by app is a feature of many jailbreak tweaks, but will no longer require you to void your warranty. So is jailbreaking dead? Of course not! There will always be users looking to get just a little bit more out of their devices, whatever the cost, but those people aren't who Apple is targeting. iOS 8 is made to appeal to the portion of the iDevice population that has become dependent on one or two long-standing tweaks. Apple has long embraced features from outside its own walls, making no bones about appropriating great ideas from wherever it sees fit. The jailbreak community is a great place to draw from, since it's essentially a free testing ground to see what works and what doesn't. Now, by taking the most popular jailbreak tweaks and making them its own, Apple is silently fighting the jailbreak movement by using its own weapons against it. [Photo credit: David Bleasdale (locks)]
These five surprisingly pointless OS X mods may amuse you
I recently went hunting for interesting OS X mods. For every useful item that turned up, I found lots of dead ends. Many items read by the OS X preferences system (through, for example, calls to CFPreferencesCopyAppValue) have little or no application to end-user needs. They're there primarily for the app's internal state or as remnants of Apple's development process. I've curated a bit of a slush pile for items that are interesting enough to take note of, but haven't quite made the grade when it comes to utility. Here are five of my favorite "interesting, but not very handy" tweaks that I've encountered while scanning for defaults or, in the case of the System Preferences one, that I've stumbled over while using an app. 1. Reset the Dock The OS X installer regularly leaves debris in your Dock. OS-promoted apps include such items as Mission Control, Safari, Photo Booth, iLife apps and so forth. Now, with a simple system command, you can restore all those apps in the Dock that you laboriously removed at least once before. Tip to the wise: Make sure you back up com.apple.dock.plist in ~/Library/Preferences before applying this one so you have a reference guide of your prefs to help you move back to. In the Terminal app, enter the following. defaults write com.apple.dock version -int 0 ; killall Dock Once the Dock restarts, it returns itself to its newly installed default glory. Admire the jam-packed contents before spending the next 10 minutes editing it back to the way it's supposed to look. 2. Prevent edits to the Dock If you're in a particularly evil mood and this is not your Dock, you might want to add this little default tweak. It prevents users from further editing the Dock contents. defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool yes ; killall Dock To restore end-user editing, switch off the immutability: defaults write com.apple.dock contents-immutable -bool no ; killall Dock 3. Reveal desktop background paths This next tweak shows the paths for your desktop backgrounds on each of your screens. Why would you want to do this? One of my testers suggested it might help when you have a regularly rotating desktop background. For most people, it's not very handy at all. defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool yes ; killall Dock and going back: defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool no ; killall Dock 4. Remove pane icons from the main System Preferences window The System Preferences app consists of rows and rows of icons, which you tap to access individual settings panes. Did you know that you could tweak this presentation and remove items? I have no idea why anyone would ever want to use this feature, but it's a standard part of the app. To choose which panes to view, select View > Customize. Uncheck any item to hide it. You can still access all the panes from the View menu. Another option, View > Organize Alphabetically, replaces the category grouping with a large mash of alphabetically presented icons. 5. Add a useless debugging menu to iBooks for OS X This tweak does just what it says on the wrapper. If you've ever dreamed of a special secret app menu, then this is the system mod for you. (Similar mods exist for several other apps, so Google around to find some other exciting suggestions.) At the terminal, enter: defaults write com.apple.iBooksX BKShowDebugMenu -boolean yes And then launch iBooks. The new Debug menu appears to the right of other options. And there you have it. Five obscure and not-very-handy tweaks. Got any more tweaks you've stumbled across and want to share? Drop us a note in our tips line. We may cover your OS X mod in a future write-up.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The super news of October
October was a pretty big month. I don't mean that just because it was a month filled with all of the classic horror you could ever hope for, although that was certainly welcome. But October also saw two big superhero games ramping up and doing things in a big way, one for a console launch and one for a big fan-pleasing rally... which was pretty cool to see, all around. That's not to say that the other superhero games available sat around and did nothing during October, but you couldn't match the energy surrounding City of Titans and DC Universe Online. Let's look back at the past month of capes and cowls.
Android 4.2.2 update reveals minor changes to Quick Settings and more
Android 4.2.2 began arriving on an assortment of Nexus devices yesterday with "performance and stability" improvements listed as the only changes, but Android Police dug into Google's change logs and compiled a list of small tweaks. With the update on board, Play Store downloads now display the time left to their completion, and Android Debug Bridge security is shored-up with the addition of a whitelist. Now, WiFi and Bluetooth tiles can be toggled by a long press in the notification Quick Settings. The release also makes hardware play a tone when it begins to charge wirelessly with less than 95% juice left, and uses new low battery and cord-free charging chimes for the Nexus 4. Reports about possible Bluetooth fixes are mixed according to Android Police, and a reference to patching them up hasn't been spotted just yet. If you'd like to take a look at Mountain View's code commits, give the neighboring source link a jab.
Chromebook 101: How to make your new toy more Apple-y
Steve is a deeply bad influence. He started the trend, which prompted me to order my own Chromebook (although I had been waiting to pull the trigger for several weeks). Slowly this US$250 MacBook-wannabe has been infiltrating TUAW households. It's great for kids. It's a unit you don't mind taking on non-work trips. It's undemanding. But it's not quite the MacBook experience, especially for our Apple-trained fingers. The problem is that we want the Control key next to the space bar, not waaaaaay off to the left. Solution? A simple Chromebook option, similar to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Modifier Keys. 1. Visit chrome://settings/languageCustomizeModifierKeysOverlay on your Chromebook 2. Under Device > click Keyboard Settings. A little dialog opens. 3. Swap Alt to Ctrl, and Ctrl to Alt. And, if you like, bring back Caps Lock by selecting that from the Search pop-up. And you're set. You're ready to Chrome like a real Machead!
How to enable iCal's debug menu
ZDNet (via Macgasm) has posted a couple of neat iCal tweaks that should make your life a bit easier: Enabling the debug menu and showing two weeks worth of appointments at once. The trick involves a couple of Terminal commands. To enter debug mode, use the following: defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 1 And, if you want to remove it, use the following command: defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 0 Once you've got the debug menu activated, restart iCal. Here's what you'll see. There's quite a few tricks here, including the ability to have to multiple iCal windows open at the same time. You also can expand the week view to glimpse up to 28 days at once, which is a little too much. But like ZDNet says, being able to see two weeks at a time in week view is pretty handy. To switch the views, select the desired time from the "top sekret" menu and toggle between week and another calendar option. The new mode is enabled once you return to the week view.
Windows 8 file management: you ask, Microsoft listens
After augmenting Windows 8 with some mobile-friendly features, it looks like file management is next to go under the knife. Not the sexiest part of an OS, granted, but one you'll use almost every day -- a fact not lost on Redmond. Based on newsgroup feedback, Windows 8 will sport a stack of tweaks hoping to make some of the more mundane tasks, well, less mundane. For example, if you copy duplicate files to a directory, it'll make decisions based on size, name and modified date to determine if it's the same file or not. For long copy jobs, error messages will be mercifully left until the end, allowing the rest to complete. Other simple touches include EXIF orientation data, which will be reflected in Explorer's preview, updates to the slightly contentious Ribbon, plus a bunch more user-driven goodies. We're reserving judgement until we get hands-on of course, but if you want to know more, there's a full rundown in the source after the break.
Belfry brings Stocks and Weather, other native iPhone apps to jailbroken iPads
Rounding out the honeymoon period with that freshly jailbroken iPad 2? Well now we have some new apps for you to play with, and you may already be acquainted. iOS hacker Ryan Petrich's most recent project, dubbed Belfry, lets you install stock iPhone apps that are otherwise absent from both versions of Apple's tablet including Clock, Voice Memos, Stocks, Calculator, Compass and Weather. As to why these aren't included already is beyond our knowledge, but at least there's an alternative. Users can install Belfry directly within Cydia for free from the BigBoss repository. If you're looking for proof to seal the deal, you can catch the bashful Belfry and his silent film antics after the break.
Battlefield 3 soliciting feedback for gun attachment tweaks via Reddit thread
For most Battlefield 3 players, the huge number of weapon-mounted accessories are little more than filler between the obvious handful of choices that offer the best, effective results. The game's core gameplay designer, Alan Kertz, has picked up on that state and taken to Reddit to solicit advice for tweaking BF3's various gun augmentations. "I'm not promising this will go live, and I'm not promising there will be an update, I'm looking for feedback and a discussion," Kurtz writes, carefully requesting feedback while trying not to overpromise. He says that the goal in said request is to "focus on improving the under performing and under used attachments," but also to identify how to nerf the most powerful attachments. Interested in sounding off? Head over to the Reddit thread and get passionate.
Three ways to change Lion's Finder window sidebar
It took me a little while, but I finally last weekend updated to Lion, and so far ... I think I like it. I kind of miss my old Spaces feature, and I did turn off reverse scrolling right away, but it does seem to run better than Snow Leopard, and Mission Control is pretty sweet. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of, however, is the new Finder sidebar -- it's pretty bland, and not quite as clear or useful as the one in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, that's pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in Lion to switch around the order of the various devices and sources listed on the side of the screen. Finally, if you're ending up with aliases in the Finder sidebar that lose the source they're originally alias'ed from, you can drag-and-CMD-drop them to erase them once and for all. Apple of course makes all of these changes with good intentions, and maybe there are good reasons to do things like drain all the color out of the interface (maybe it allows you to focus more on the important stuff: your files in the other window). But for those of us who like the old ways best, it's good to know we've got options.
Cydia Search lets you search for jailbreak apps from your desktop
Searching for the perfect Jailbreak app in Cydia on the iPhone can be a frustratingly slow experience. Cydia Search from Planet-iPhones.com eases your pain by allowing you to browse through the plethora of Cydia apps by category, repository or author, all from the comfort of a desktop browser. If you know what you're looking for, you can search by name, description, author, version number or one of the many other search filters, which should make short work of finding what you're looking for. Once you've located a package you're interested in, you can check out who wrote it, the price, the current version, which repository it's stored on, as well as view the actual Cydia entry as it would appear on an iPhone. While this isn't the first implementation of a desktop Cydia interface -- ModMyi also provides a searchable front end for Cydia on the desktop -- Cydia Search provides a fast, slick experience that's well worth checking out. It's great for those people sitting on the fence as to whether or not they want to jailbreak their iDevice since it allows them to view all the programs, add-ons, tweaks and themes before they take the plunge. Likewise, if you're looking for a new app or update, Cydia Search will allow you to find what you're looking for before you head to Cydia on your device to download it.
Turbine posts DDO Update 9 patch notes
It's update time in the world of Eberron, and Turbine's Tolero has posted the substantial patch notes on the official Dungeons and Dragons Online forums. Update 9 is currently strutting its stuff on the Lamannia test server, and among the new features are updated combat animations, a Saltire District adventure pack, and a host of tweaks to a lengthy list of spells and abilities. The list is so long, in fact, that we couldn't reproduce it here, so head to the boards and see for yourself. Update 9 also boasts a couple of class changes, notably additional early level spell points for Rangers and Paladins as well as a new Echoes of Power effect. When a player with the magical training feat is low on spell points, Echoes of Power will automatically come to the rescue with a regeneration effect.
Star Wars Galaxies rolls out the Entertainer update
Despite an explosion of titles across the MMOsphere in recent years, Sony Online Entertainment's Star Wars Galaxies is still one of the very few to feature much in the way of non-combat game mechanics. We aren't just talking about one-button crafting, an optional music system, or developer-sanctioned mount racing here, but rather an entire class dedicated to brightening someone else's day. Today's 19.12 hotfix is billed as the Entertainer update, and it's rather aptly named given the lengthy list of tweaks coming to dancers and musicians across the galaxy far, far away. The Entertainer class is receiving a complete expertise tree revamp (and a complimentary reset), new combat buffs, new hairstyles for image design abilities, new dance moves, a new flourish, and several new commands (including a new perform tab). That's a lot of new, but it's not all of it, and you can read the complete list of changes and additions on the official SWG forums.
Wintergrasp lag a big issue after patch 3.1
Zarhym has got some answers to the widespread problem of lag in Wintergrasp after patch 3.1 the other week. He says Blizzard figures the problem is simply population based -- there are many more people playing in the battleground than there were before the patch. For that reason, they're having trouble coming up with good solutions: the battleground is designed to be non-instanced, and that's why a lot of people like it, so putting a limit on the amount of people in there is not the way to go. Hardware isn't a solution either -- Blizzard's hardware is already top-of-the-line, and not only would upgrading it take a while anyway, but my guess is that most of the lag issues come not from Blizzard's side, but from the connections between players and them, which they may not have any control over anyway.So yes, we're more or less out of luck -- as long as Wintergrasp is extremely popular (and even Zarhym remembers the naysayers before the release with a smirk), there will always be a certain amount of lag in there. There are a few good suggestions floating around the comments thread -- one is that Wintergrasp should always be conquerable, which seems like it would keep down on the flood of people, though of course there'd be other issues if that were implemented.At this point, Wintergrasp lag may just be something we have to live with. Eventually, you have to think the population will drop back down, and then those of us still in there will enjoy lag-free battles again. But Blizzard has taken on quite a goal trying to do non-instanced PvP full of vehicles and towers without any lag at all.
Everex's Cloudbook postponed for "tweaks"
Remember how we told you Everex's little gOS-sporting Cloudbook was headed to Wal-Mart this month (today, to be specific)? Well hold your check book, friend-o -- they ain't done with it. According to the company's director of marketing, Paul Kim, the system requires, "A couple of last minute software tweaks," before it's ready for prime-time. There's no word on when it will make an appearance, though we're inclined to think this won't be a major delay... but you never know. Should shipments alight, we'll be the first to share the good news.
Pixelmator releases version 1.1.2
I nabbed Pixelmator last week as part of the Macheist bundle, and I have to say that it's quickly become my photo editor of choice for blogging-- it's quick, beautiful, simple, and perfect for what I need. Of course, what I need is mostly just resizing and cropping (with the occasional color fills or quick brushes), so I'm not a pro photo editor by any means, but as the creators said in our interview, it gets the job done.And with the new patch 1.1.2, just released today, it gets the job done even better. The patch offers quite a few bug fixes, and a short list of interface tweaks and improvements. Selection tools have been beefed up, as have those color fills (they work in real-time, unlike before, you know, when they worked in fake-time). The update is now available for download over on the site, or should show up in the application as well.
Media Player boosts WoW performance
Many players have experienced faster WoW loading times with Windows Media Player (WMP) running in the background. Some players are also reporting lower latency and higher frames per second.This tip surfaced in the Europe forums late November and was picked up by the US forums two weeks ago. Many players are reporting shortened loading times, some by more than 50%.I did a quick test and found that by running WMP in the background, minimized and not playing anything, the login screen popped up about 20 seconds quicker than usual. The world loading time (time between clicking Enter World button and character appearing on screen) was also faster by about 15 seconds. However I did not see any significant improvements in latency or framerate. To eliminate performance boosts due to caching or preloading, I rebooted my machine between each set of timings.Some players have also suggested adding:SET timingMethod "1" or SET timingMethod "2"to the config.wtf file to achieve the same effect without running WMP. For me, this shortened the time for the login screen to appear by 20 seconds as well, but only shortened world loading time by 5 seconds. Combining WMP and the config.wtf tweak resulted in the same timings with just running WMP alone.There's been no official Blizzard response to this yet, although a likely explanation is that WMP modifies how your computer handles background applications. With WMP open, all available CPU resources apparently become allocated to WoW, leading to better performance.Does this quirk work for you? Do you see any improvements in framerate and latency?
Level tweaking on instances 1-60 in patch 2.3
Hopefully you were just as excited as I was yesterday to see that specifics about leveling improvements have been announced, as well as about 60 brand new midlevel quests (!) in Dustwallow Marsh. And as we heard, low level dungeons are getting tweaked, too, though not in any way I would have imagined. Blizzard, it sounds like, is going to be streamlining them, changing them from (for example with Shadowfang Keep) a 18-25 level dungeon, to an 18-21.But waitaminute-- we've already got dungeons from 18-21. Wailing Caverns and Deadmines, specifically, and moving SFK up to 21 leaves a hole before Stockades and Blackfathom Deeps. What gives?What gives, says Bornakk, is that Blizzard is streamlining the whole experience, which means all the instances are going to be given this same tweaking. BFD, Stockades, RFK, Gnomer (ooh, interesting) are all going to be streamlined to be finished before 30, where, Bornakk says, Scarlet Monastery, RFD, and Uldaman will await characters. In essence it sounds like the clumps of leveling 1-60 are getting evened out, and that big hole around the mid 30s (where STV is your only choice) is getting filled in.Sounds great to me. I'm especially excited about Dustwallow Marsh-- I have three or four characters languishing in their mid 30s, so new quests there will be much appreciated. And Blizzard is always watching how we play-- if new content in the 30s is as popular as I suspect it will be, maybe they can consider adding in even more midlevel content for alts and newbies.
New Leopard Build Introduces New Feature, Tweaks
The latest build of Leopard, (9A303) introduced some small but nifty features to the list of enhancements that will ship with the new OS next year. Lets take a look: QuickLook is a new feature which allows users to view a full size preview of any image by right clicking on it, without having to open up the full Preview application. The workflow for creating Dashboard Web Clips has changed. Instead of having to first open Dashboard, users can now create Web Clips directly within Safari. When connecting a new external storage device, Leopard will ask you if would like to use the drive as a Time Machine backup drive. The Spaces switching dialog is now a glossy black. Small news, but news none the less, and we'll take anything we can get until we see some new announcements from Mr. Jobs himself.
Make your PC more Maclike
There have been numerous blog entries about making Windows look more like OS X, and frankly I never saw the point. I'm more of a defaults kinda guy when it comes to look and feel, about the only thing I do when I am using a PC is to set Windows XP to look like 'Classic Windows.'I have no need for a fake dock, or icons that want to trick me into thinking I am using a Mac. The thing that would be most useful to me is if there were a way to make my PC act more like my Mac, i.e. allow me to perform certain tasks in much the same way. Apparently I am not alone in this wish and, unlike me, Marcus Vorwaller did something about it. If you need to use a PC for any reason I suggest you check out his blog entry entitled, 'Make Your PC Work (not look) More Like a Mac.' I know I'll be downloading some of the apps he suggests as soon as I am at my work PC tomorrow.
