A while back, I ditched Cydia and my jailbreak on my iPhone 4 (Verizon) for the bells and whistles promised by IOS 5. At the time, I thought about all the advantages of my jailbroken IOS and decided that the new features of IOS 5 outweighed the features I was actively using from being jailbroken. Then came Siri and this month, I learned that Siri was soon to be ported to jailbroken iPhones running IOS 5.0.1 and couldn’t wait to jailbreak again. This morning, the untethered IOS 5.0.1 jailbreak AND the Siri port (named Spire) are both available.
How To Jailbreak IOS 5.0.1 Untethered
First, make sure you have one of these supported devices:
- iPhone 4 (GSM – CDMA)
- iPhone 3GS
- iPod touch 4G
- iPod touch 3G
- iPad 1
You’ll also need to make sure you’re on IOS 5.0.1 If not, update your device now, because Apple is sure to release a new version soon to close up some open doors.
Got everything you need? Good, you’re ready to begin. Just follow these steps:
1. BACK UP – You don’t know how many times this has saved me. Do It!
2. Download Redsn0w 0.9.10b1 (Windows – Mac OS X).
3. Unzip the Redsn0w archive you downloaded and run Redsn0w 0.9.10.b1.
4. Click the button to Jailbreak and follow the on-screen instructions.
After a couple minutes and a reboot, you should be jailbroken. Props go out to pod2g for making it possible.
How To Install Siri On iPhone 4
Ryan Petrich and chpwn have released a port of Siri, called Spire, to Cydia. This is about 100MB, so you really should install via Wifi. To find it, just search for Spire in the BigBoss repository.
This is the best port of Siri to date, but it still requires authorization from Apple to run. This means that you have to find and use a proxy in order to use Siri (for now). For more information on how to get a proxy, see this post from cydiahelp.com.
Unbrick Your iPhone
Just like anyone, I can make mistakes. Sure enough, while trying to re-jailbreak my iPhone, I wound up turning it into a paper weight when I did something wrong and it wouldn’t boot up. If this happened to you, don’t worry because there’s hope. Sadly, it will take some time to restore and you may lose some settings, though. If your phone is stuck with error messages or won’t boot, you can start by doing a factory restore. This will reset the phone to the stock or latest IOS install. After this, you need to restore from your latest backup. You did make a backup, right? Once the backup is in place, you’re ready to jailbreak again. Good luck!
It’s almost Christmas, but I didn’t have to wait to see Santa. In fact, he brought his elves to my house to dance. Well, at least that’s what I was able to make a video of thanks to today’s review of ReelDoozy, a pretty unique iPhone app.
What’s All This About?
ReelDoozy is an iPhone app that uses green screen technology to let you super-impose fun video they provide on top of your own video. The result is a video of, say, your own house with Santa dancing around in your living room. This green screen technology has been used for years in the television and film industry but lately, it’s turning up in all sorts of fun apps like this, thanks to the processing power and video capabilities of today’s smart phone line-up.
ReelDoozy Features And Improvement
When the app is fired up, the first thing to do in order to make a video is select a foreground video. This is the video of Santa, or whatever else you choose, that will be super-imposed atop your own video. There are four short clips starring Santa and his elves that are free to use. For most, these will be fine to play with, but the app offers six additional foreground video collections that can be unlocked for an in-app purchase of 99 cents per collection. While playing, I decided to buy the Dancing Pack to aid in the making of my review video below.
After selecting a foreground video, you select a background video or create one on the fly. So far, it’s been pretty basic stuff I had expected from the app, but the next step was a nice touch. With both the foreground and background videos selected, you can choose where to position the foreground subject and even pinch-zoom to re-size him. Better still, you’re given slider controls to adjust the brightness and contrast of the foreground video and can choose to use the foreground audio, the background, or a mix of both. Of course, this stuff is almost necessary if you want the final video to look good at all. I would have really enjoyed some kind of path selection to allow me to move Santa with the floor if my background video moves too much, but it might be a bit much to ask of a free app.
While I’m being greedy, I’d love some more selection in video packs. The dancing and humor scenes are fun, but I’d love the option for a couple scenes in which Santa is placing presents under the tree or filling a stocking. I’ll gladly throw down another buck for that.
Video of Santa Dancing
Sometimes the best part of a review is playing with fun stuff, so I tried to be a little creative and come up with my own videos with Santa and the elves and here’s the result.
Conclusions
When I first saw the press release for this, I thought it looked like a neat way to show the kids that Santa had actually been there. After installing and playing around, I realized it was pretty fun for those of us without kids, too. The price is always right when it’s free, and even the in-app purchase options were well within reason. The one stand-out problem with this app is that is freezes on me when finalizing a video. The video does save, though, so this is a minor inconvenience. In the end, ReelDoozy is a lot of free holiday fun, leaving you little reason to not check it out. If you try it out, I really want to see what videos you come up with, so share the links in the comment section below.
I have a wallet filled with stuff. It’s packed full with probably 7 cards, some business cards, a ton of receipts, insurance information, a couple coupons, and sometimes actual money – but usually not. Of all these things, I usually only use a couple cards, so having a The Callet seemed like a pretty good idea.
What is The Callet?
The Callet is the love child of a wallet and a phone case. It protects your phone like many phone cases, but it includes a feature that you don’t see in other phone cases. On the back of this case, there are two pockets for credit cards and the like. The idea is to provide the convenience of an iPhone case with features that replace the most basic need of the common wallet. I mentioned above that I don’t usually have cash in my wallet, and I think that may be more and more common in a society where we’re all in the habit of using credit or reaching for our debit card.
The Callet is available in pink, blue, black, and white for most iPhone and Blackberry devices. It’s also cheaper than a lot of iPhone cases I’ve reviewed, coming in at $19.95
My Wallet-Free Week
OK, ok. I actually carried my wallet, too, but I spent a week with this case around my phone and mostly ignored my wallet. In that time, I noticed a few things.
The Callet mostly nailed it with the two primary functions it was created for. It kept my phone protected and it served as a wallet. The unique feature as a wallet was perfect for holding my debit card and driver’s license, one in each card pocket. I did try to squeeze two cards into one of the card pockets and they fit, but it was a really tight fit. When I was out, I adjusted pretty quickly to pulling out my phone rather than my wallet to pay the bill at restaurants we went to. There was no problem at all with the intended features of this case.
While The Callet handled the basics well, it leaves room for at least one thing I’d like to see. Some people carry cash at all times or at least most of the time. The Callet leaves these people to find their own solution for cash. Now, I’m not sure I want my cash visible on the back of my phone every time I make a call in public, but the option might be nice. I would have also liked space for a third card, but this case had to be a little thick for two cards as it is, so perhaps they were right to stop there.
Conclusions
In the end, I switched back to my old case. The Callet is great, but I often have my phone out in a restaurant in case a server goes down and having my ID and debit card in there makes me more nervous about someone swiping it. That may just be me, though. In general, it does what it should and for about 20 bucks, the price is just right. I would pay more for a hard case, though.
I have reviewed a bunch of iPhone cases on this blog, but today, I have one that stands out from the crowd in many ways.
id America provided me with their Gasket Brushed Aluminum iPhone Case that you see above and it didn’t take long for me to love it. When I opened up the box, I got a peek at the design and got a little excited. The real joy, though, was seeing it hugging my phone. From the back, it looks like… Well, just look at the picture above. It exudes more of that “Ooh! Shiny!” feeling in the flesh, but the picture should give you some idea. Sadly, because this is brushed aluminum, it would be a bit cold and uncomfortable if id America had wrapped the design around to the front of the phone, so they opted not to. It’s a good choice, but I honestly find myself setting my phone on my desk face-down to show off the Gasket case design. This is just one of the reasons I applied the included clear screen protectors that came with this case.
I don’t much believe in having a case unless it will serve some non-aesthetic function, and the Gasket case meets that requirement with its hard exterior. Although I didn’t drop it on purpose to test it out, it only took a couple days before I handed my phone to someone at a party to take a photo and it dropped to the bricks below while I gasped. This case really does nothing at all to protect the fragile iPhone screen, but as is usually the case, the phone bounced on one of its corners and lived to complete it’s photography side job. The Gasket design wraps completely around the side edges and corners while leaving much of the top and bottom edges open in order to not obscure the charging port, speaker, mic, headphone jack and power button. As well, id America left the vibrate switch and volume buttons unobscured and was sure to not even get too close to covering the camera lens and flash.
Unlike silicone cases, this one is extremely rigid, making it a little more difficult to wrap around my iPhone and a little harder to remove. An interesting side effect of the Gasket’s design is that any dust that collects on the parts of the phone that the case does not cover seems to be more visible and leaves that same cool gasket pattern on the phone when I remove the case. Another unexpected side effect of the material used is that the edges feel a little sharp. They’re not law suit sharp, or even enough to worry about much, but it’s something to get used to. A side effect of this case that is a definite plus as far as I’m concerned is that it slides in and out of my pocket very easily. My biggest complaint about silicone cases is that they bring my jeans pocket out with them. Conversely, this case does not sit still on my lap. Put it in your pocket or on a flat surface, but don’t try to balance it on your leg.
At the end of the day, this is my favorite among all the cases I’ve used personally. It’s cool, functional, durable, and at $29.95, it’s priced well for the materials and design. I have the Titanium on my iPhone now, but I’m torn between that and the Silver. Which is your favorite?
