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Well, Lately I’ve been asked what to do with  a JailBroken iPhone.

Here are a few steps from the JailBreak to the necessary first steps in order to make your life with the IOS device a bit more fun.

What you’ll gain from using this guide:

• Jailbreaking your phone.
• Adding SBSettings – the best application to switch iPhone settings on and off.
• Get Cydia and Cydia Apps for free.
• Be able to sync any .IPA file and download applications from Installous for free.

List of items you need:

• iPhone Device with firmware 4.1
• PC
• Wireless Internet access

Do notice -

1. Some of these steps remove your warranty – Do them at your own risk.
2. This guide does not help with Sim Locked Phones.
3. Also – Please – Support Developers and buy applications you want.

Part 1 – JailBreak:

Means adding the option to run all kinds of code on your iPhone that didn’t necessarily came from Apple and it’s application store.

The current method is using limera1n.

Just download the program and run – it kind of explains itself.

Now that you followed the instructions – a new icon will appear with the name limera1n.

• Connect your phone to a wireless Internet connection.
• Click on limera1n and choose Cydia and Install.

Cydia is the current application center for everything non Apple.

Unlike the app store – Cydia downloads application files from repositories each time it opens – so it is normal for it to take some time to load completely.

Part 2 – Cydia:

• Click on Cydia and let it download the current application list (Choose GUI user).
• If needed – upgrade the packages currently in Cydia.
• Go to Manage section
• Choose Sources – > Edit (Top Right corner of the screen) -> Add (Top Left corner of the screen)
• Add the following repository: www.sinfuliphonerepo.com – gives you free access to paid Cydia apps.
• Add the following repository: cydia.hackulo.us – gives you free acces to paid appstore apps.
• Go to search (bottom right corner of the screen)

• Search for SBSettings -> Install -> Cancel / Queue -> Continue Queuing
• Search for Installous (From Hackulo.us) -> Install -> Install (Notice both packages will be installed)

At this step a reboot will be mandatory.

Part 3 – The Rewards:

After the iPhone comes back on you will have 3 very neat features:

• Cydia will now include payed apps for free – from the SinfuliPhone repository.
• Installous Icon will be available – meaning you can download app store apps from it and sync applications from sites like apptrackr.org
• SBSettings will be installed – Try swiping your finger at the top of the screen (Where the time and date appear) – Surprise – now you can see all kind of useful information like memory usage, and toggles to enable or disable various abilities.

A Few More Tricks that have nothing to do with JailBreak:

• Got a small Data Plan? Settings -> General -> Usage will tell you how much you used from it and Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data will help you turn it off (Can also be done from SBSettings).

• Multi Tasking? Double click the Home Button and you see whats running in the background.
• Want to exit an application and close it from the background – Enter multitasking mode – Long click on the application (until it starts to shiver) and a small x appears – Press it to close the application.
• Want to delete an app? Same trick as closing a process in the background will work here too.
• Want to create a new group? Long Click on an app – and then Drag it over another. This will create a new group (of up to 12 applications)
• MP3 as Ringtone? Look No More – Click Here

Most Importantly – Enjoy your iPhone and dont be afraid to experiment.

Liviu

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Epic – a long time game developer brought an official Unreal 3 Tech Demo to the iPhone and iPod Touch (3gS/4G or iPod touch 3rd Generation) – called Epic Citadel.

This demo lets you explorer a Citadel and surrounding Bazaar and views with smooth 30 FPS and higher framerate most of the time and with incredible effects and texture – effortlessly looking.

Currently it’s a showcase downloadable demo – but if it’s a Proof of Concept for games to come – well I’m excited.

Just imagining an Oblivion type game (and the level of graphics for a portable oblivion is there) makes me shiver. It makes the PSP and DS look like sad jokes at best (something the raw numbers of the iPhone processors told us long time ago, but we saw no practical proof) and look more like a proper next gen type portable graphics.

Check it out – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/epic-citadel/id388888815?mt=8

P.S. – Don’t let the small images on the page fool you, check out full size 4G images like here: http://img683.imageshack.us/g/img0038u.png/ and imagine that running smoothly with all the effects (Water, Shadows, Sound, Reflections, AA and all kind of neat stuff)

P.S.2 – Epic’s official page on the project: http://epicgames.com/technology/epic-citadel

Liviu

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Well, enough with all this Survivor and reality stuff,

This month is going to be one of the more boring months in gaming for a long time.

The highlights are:

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep – September 7th – PSP: The 6th iteration of the Kingdom hearts franchise is coming to the PSP.

For those of you not familiar with the series - Square Enix together with Disney created an hybrid Action RPG based on Final Fantasy and Disney universe characters. This series first saw light on the PS2 – with an amazing first title, a very slow starting second title and for me – only went south from there.

When factoring the fact its a PSP game as well – which by now is a kind of a barely legitimate gaming platform for me – I guess I’ll pass this one (ad least until Sony will give me a phone with PSP capabilities – that would be cool )

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light – September 28th – PC & PSN: A lot of Tomb Raider games came and go and since the first one – Most of them have been unremarkable.

While Lara as a character was nice and gave some interesting story parts, the game-play seemed to repeat itself endlessly and the environments - just weren’t good enough and with elaborate enough puzzles. An Uncharted predecessor with same potential of a character and half the success of achieving that level. This Downloadable game however is a major step sideways from the series – giving up on the 3rd person viewpoint towards a top down isometric view and introducing 2 player (online and local) modes – this seems to be hitting the mark. The 360 Version has been out for 2 weeks now getting extremely positive reviews and I’m definitely looking forward to trying it. This time Lara meets an old Mayan warrior named Totec and together they try to get an artifact and fight an evil spirit. Well the story probably wont be Mass effect – but it would do.

Since it’s such a slow month, I decided to bring up 2 games I missed on the launch dates and put my hands on lately:

Darksiders: Out for a few month now – Darksiders tells the tale of War – one of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, He is called to duty just to find out he was tricked and be killed. This however does not conclude our story, rather then just begin it. The council ask War to go back and face the Destroyer – both to prove his innocence and restore the balance between heaven and hell. From here on the game begins – In style it moves between God of War (or perhaps Ninja Gaiden?)  to Zelda type puzzles. So far I spent around 12 hours on the game and I highly recommend it. It’s perhaps one of the better Zelda clones of the last few years. Especially at this price point at TheHut.com.

Joe Danger: Released back in June – a PSN game which I think was kind of lost on most people on it’s release. Made by only 4 people – this Excite bikes influenced bike game is tons of fun. The demo (downloadable on the American PSN for 2 weeks or so already) showcases the game better then I can explain – You have to ride through the levels, perform tricks and meet objectives. This is tons of fun and I found myself glued to the game.

Perhaps 15$ is a bit of a steep price point for this – but it’s a must try demo.

One last item on my list today is the Sega version of Shining Force Which hit the iPhone this month.

Shining force is one of the first turn based strategic RPGs, Originally released to the MegaDrive / Genesis platform.

For those of you who love Advance Wars , Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea and those kind of tactical RPGs – this is a great chance to see how most of them started. Although a bit primitive by today’s standards – the game still proves to be hell of a lot of fun and gave me a great time this time around as well.

A few words worth mentioning – I’m not currently writing about the current PS3 Jailbreak since I find it kind of pointless to write about something that wasn’t proven or sold yet.

So OK, about 3 videos and a few “Reviews” appeared online (going back to about 2 sources – which sell them), but until more credible news pop up – I wont waste my time on writing about it (learning a bit from past “PS3 is hacked” news).

So let’s wait and see for more news on this end.

Liviu

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Since I kind of neglected the blog for a while – decided to do a short post combining all kind of stuff.

Friday Apple decided to address the iPhone 4G reception issue. To those of you not up to date on the issue – basically – due to the exterior antenna design – when you hold the iPhone a certain way – it’s reception drops and it might even disconnect – due to short circuiting between the cellular and Wifi antennas. Steve Jobs talked at a press conference Friday regarding this issue saying they are not perfect and so are their phones. Emphasizing on the fact the return rate is low, the complaints are relatively numbered and it’s not as big of an issue as it is presented to be. Just to be “fair” – Apple decided to give Bumper cases free (and return the money for previously bought ones as far as i understood) – which are practically fixing the problem.

Second story – is Lego Harry Potter. I don’t know how I missed talking about it but don’t miss it. It’s the current Lego universe iteration following the first 4 books of Harry Potter. This is done in a very comic and nicely and originally presented. I got it as a birthday present and it’s definitely a fun one for whoever liked previous Lego games.

Last but not least – Birthdays, Me and my wife recently had our Birthdays – So Happy Birthday to us – and may we have many more – Sivan – I love you.

And my parents celebrated their 29th anniversary (occurs same day as my birthday – only a year before) – So happy anniversary and may you have many more years of love and joy.

Liviu

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Yesterday at WWDC10 – Apple’s yearly World Wide Developers Conference – Apple announced the new iPhone G4. Here are a few details on Apple’s latest iPhone.

Some specs:

• New screen 960 x 640
• 16 or 32 GB internal storage
• Apple A4 CPU – 1 Ghz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU + PowerVR SGX535 GPU
• 256 Mb ram (on CPU)
• WiFi N (2.4 Ghz – 2 channel 300 megabits)
• 3 Axis Gyro
• Dual for microphone noise suppression
• Rear camera – 5 Mega Pixel with LED flash – able to capture 720P video at 30 FPS
• Front camera – VGA 30 FPS
• Improved battery- 16% bigger.

Together with the iPhone – iOS4 – the new iPhone’s OS was also revealed and will be released towards the end of June.

Some of the new features included in this version :

• Application folders (using the appstore’s categories)
• Multitasking
• Fast App Switching (think hibernate mode on applications)
• Improved mail client (multiple exchange accounts, inbox switching)
• iBooks – an integrated eBook reader app.
• Game Center – the PSN/XBL of the iPhone
• Digital zoom
• Bluetooth keyboard support

This OS update is also relevant to the 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd generation devices.

Some pictures:

My personal thoughts on the device is that it looks amazing and very promising. Apple proved they can innovate and continue holding their position as a market leader in technologies in this field showing some nice innovations and presenting a very capable device ahead of the competition.

The OS is as usual a major update that really give some nice extra value to existing iPhone (3GS) users and keeps them up to date.

Definitely looking forward to see it arrive over here and play with it a little.

Liviu

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Well, I don’t really like to take too much care about all kind of mock-ups and leaked footage of tech products before they hit the market. I mainly find myself disappointed when they don’t live up to the mock-up sometimes and see not much point in it.

However – Gizmodo published some footage and video of a phone found that looks pretty legit to the tear-down level of the product.

Some of the features on the phone they found:

• Front Camera
• Improved Back Camera with Flash
• MicroSIM (Who cares?)
• Improved screen.
• Second Mic for noise cancellation.
• Split volume buttons and all metallic buttons.

Some of the screenshots (Taken from Gizmodo.com – Visit them often to support them – one of the best tech blogs):

Liviu

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Trust me, there is a good reason the fellow on the left is standing here again.

Last Week – Transformers G1: Awakening hit the iPhone Application store. The game is a re-release of an older mobile phone game with the same name but with some upgrades. It is a Turn Based military strategy game with a twist – instead of generic soldiers it uses the classic Transformers and Decepticons. The game is a using an Advance Wars Similar scheme – the battlefield is laid out composed of squares. There are a few important differences that set it aside though:

• It doesn’t use factories – Instead – some Transformers are able to introduce units into the battlefield: Metroplex and Trypticon for big Transformers and Blaster and Soundwave for small Transformers.
• Most Transformers have two forms – Vehicle and Robot. In Vehicle form they are able to move fast across the battlefield, but in robot mode they are able to attack, take over power plants and level up.
• Leveling up using energon cubes during the battlefield.

When Starting a new game – you are told the story of the Transformers arriving to earth and thrown directly into action as the Autobots in a classic G1 story arc. You meet a lot of the classic transformers you grew to love as a child of the 80′s. This goes on for 16 missions around the same story line that should take an average gamer around 3-4 hours to finish. After your done with those missions there are two more modes to explore: Showdown – a list of missions in which you need to eliminate the other side in various scenarios – there are 8 of those when some of them are pretty difficult. The last play mode is Cybertron arena – allowing you to play as either the Autobots or Decepticons on Cybertron in various conditions – and also play a 2 player hot seat (the only kind of multiplayer mode in the game) – 5 Different arenas are included. The Graphics are a nice tribute to the G1 Era and designs and are pretty faithful, its not the prettiest thing around – but ain’t looking bad at all. The sound includes all our loved sounds – from transforming to moving between Autobots and Decepticons – perhaps some speech like “Autobots roll out” could have been nice – but I guess its too much to ask from an iPhone game.

I think my main issues with the game and the only reason I wouldn’t fully recommend it is the depth and balance. I Feel like some depth is lacking, perhaps the missions are too short, not enough Autobots or just not enough levels to play through – but the depth is definitely lacking (but then again – my comparison point is Advance Wars). The second issue is the balance – some levels took me 5 minutes to finish and totally trample my enemies – some took me 10 tries.

Even with these issues – I’d still recommend this game. It is one of the more polished Turn Based Strategy games on the iPhone and the use of the Transformers frenchise doesn’t hurt it a bit – and it feels integrated well and not just shoved in to generate sells.

Pros:

• Polished Turn Based Strategy – Using Transformers specific elements
• Lots of quality playtime for an iPhone Game
• 2 Players Hot seat

Cons:

• A bit lacking in the combat depth
• Some unbalanced scenarios
• Lack of Online Multiplayer

75 in the Liviu 1-100 Scale.

iTunes Link: Transformers G1: Awakening

Screenshots:

Liviu

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Two (technically 3) new iPhone titles that seem to actually be worth waiting for are planed to be released soon.

The first one, which I didn’t even know was in the works is Transformers G1: Awakening. Combining the Transformers franchise in my most beloved form – G1 – Meaning the original Transformers from the 80′s together with an Advanced Wars type of strategy – can’t be a bad idea. For those of you who don’t know advance wars – It is a Turn based Strategy Military combat game when every mission relays on a certain scenario using different units. The story begins with the Transformers waking up on earth after being asleep for 4 million years (familiar anyone? just the way a Transformers story should start) and goes through a lot of the classic transformers, the presentation is done using Cell Shading which should give the game an authentic cartoonish look. The game will be released at February 25th’ but IGN has already reviewed the game – giving it an 8.5.

The second game coming to the iPhone – or better said games – are Final Fantasy 1 & 2. Previously remade for the PSP without such a big success an iPhone version is currently in the making. Although missing some of the elements that made the series so well known that came only in later titles, These games are still considered some of the more influential and better J-RPGs ever created, and with some small touches could definitely become a must for any RPG iPhone owner. More details regarding this versions have been released on TouchArcade and some pictures and trailers here – one of the better iPhone gaming sites.

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Popcap games released today Plants VS Zombies in its iPhone version. Popcap is a well known casual games developer known for Bejeweled, Peggle, Zuma and other wonderful time wasting games.

Plants VS Zombies is a kind of tower defense in rows. You have to save your human using plants you grow in your back yard against waves and waves of zombie attacks. I finished the PC version some time ago and had lots of fun with it, from the few minutes I spent with the iPhone version – it seems like Popcap did a wonderful job. Check it out on iTunes, or read the review IGN posted and gave it a 9.0.

Liviu

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Well, After some wait and a lot of rumors, today Steve Jobs revealed the iPad – Apple’s new candy.

The iPad is a multi-touch tablet computer designed to fill the space between an iPhone and a macbook, with some capabilities taken from both. The device is suppose to be a pick up and use, ever connected computer for everyday needs.

A bit of tech data:

• 9.7″ Multi Touch Screen – 1024*768 pixels
• Wifi N
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• 3G – on 3G model only
• Capacity – 16, 32 and 64 GB (costing 499, 599 and 699 accordingly in the US for the non 3G model)
• Apple 1GH A4 processor

The system is running some kind of iPhoneOS flavor of OS-X operation system, that is said to support “most” (Quote from their site) of the current iPhone applications either enlarged or on an iPhone sized display area. For me – the main question left unanswered is what is this CPU’s capabilities. This CPU is the first to come from an in-house department (formally Palo Alto Semiconductors) – which used to work on PPC and ARM architecture processors (the A4 is ARM by the way). It is a SOC – System On a Chip type CPU, which I didn’t find too much information about on the web. I think this will be the distinction between a large iPod Touch and a useful tablet computer. I have to say though, I was expecting a stronger CPU, but since we don’t know the capabilities exactly – I will not judge it yet.

More updates as they come

Liviu

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