Features and functionality from Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Windows Phone and more, still ripe for iOS 6 inspiration

What will Apple bring to iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad with iOS 6? What will be the "tentpole" features to take Apple's mobile software into 2013? With WWDC 2012 coming in just over a week, and an iOS 6 beta widely expected to come with it, now's the perfect time to take a look and see what makes sense.

We've already seen some of what is likely coming in iOS 6, including a new version of the Maps app that replaces Google data with Apple data. It wouldn't surprise us in the least if it brings turn-by-turn navigation with it either, by way of Siri...

But what else could Apple bring with iOS 6?

Making smart choices

No company can do everything at once. Opportunity cost means that when you spend time developing feature A, you can't spend that same time also developing feature B. Even if you pull engineers from other projects, even if you work around the clock, there are limits to how much any company, even Apple, can do at one time. You have to choose. The key is choosing smartly.

When Apple launched the original iPhone in 2007, it didn't have many of the traditional features that established smartphone platforms had for years already. But it didn't matter. The revolution in user interface was enough that people simply didn't care (or were willing to carry two devices to make up for it.)

Obviously, prioritizing the multitouch interface was the right choice to make.

Apple then proceeded to add back those smartphone staples. Among other things, iOS 2 (then iPhone OS 2) got the App Store, iOS 3 got MMS (outside the U.S.), video, push notifications, and copy and paste, iOS 4 got folders, better email, and limited 3rd party multitasking, iOS 5 got better notifications, Siri voice control, and went PC free with iCloud.

The rest of the industry didn't stand still, however. Android was released and is now at version 4.x, Ice Cream Sandwich, with more on the way. Palm rebooted with webOS, and while their business failed, their interface work was more than impressive. Microsoft rebooted with Windows Phone and let the world know that some people in Redmond did indeed have taste. And now RIM is poised to reboot with BlackBerry 10, and take gesture-based phone interfaces to the next level.

Interestingly, many of the newly rebooted operating systems lacked -- and some still lack -- all the features of their predecessors. And because they rebooted, Apple's iOS, once the new smartphone operating system on the block, is now one of the oldest.

That doesn't mean Apple can and should make sure they replicate each and every competing features. I'd argue many of the ones listed below shouldn't be copied, perhaps shouldn't even be re-imagined. But they should be considered. Apple is famous for saying "no" more than they say "yes", however, so that shouldn't be a problem.

In fact, as we approach iOS 6, Apple might have already reached feature parity, and it might be hard to look at other platforms and see what else needs to be matched -- that there's no longer any low hanging fruit.

But what about the (slightly) higher hanging fruit?

What iOS could take from Android

Android isn't a singular phenomena the way the iPhone is. There are multiple versions of Android currently on the market, and multiple manufacturer interfaces layered on top of them. Still, there are a few common threads in Android that iOS could draw inspiration from.

Better home screen information density

With very few exceptions, an icon on an app launcher like the current iOS Home screen (aka Springboard) tells you only which app will launch when and if you tap it. They're static images and there's typically no information about the current state of the app, or any relevant data beyond the static image.

In the case of Apple's iOS, Calendar will show you the current date on its icon, and Apple created a badging system to overlay the number of outstanding alerts an app has pending. But that's it. With Notification Center, with a little extra effort, you can pull down snippets of those alerts, and see widgets for Weather and Stocks. However, the level of immediately available, glanceable data remains low.

While Apple has widgets in Notification Center and Siri, Android lets you pin them to Home screens as well.

The iOS Home screen isn't designed as a place to hang around, but as a launcher to get you quickly into apps. With widgets, however, you don't have to get into apps to get high level data, and sometimes that's more efficient. If rumors of a 16:9, 4-inch iPhone are to be believed, there could also be an extra 117 pixels on the Home screen to house a swipe-able widget space.

Here are some more examples and concepts for what Apple could do to with the Home screen, both in general and if they do go with a 4-in, 16:9 display.

• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The 16:9 iPhone

Direct file access

If I start writing an email in iOS, then decide I want to attach a document, I can't. It's not just difficult, it's impossible. Even if I trash the email, go to a document app, and share via email, I can only share what's in that app. I simply can't attach a Keynote, PDF, and image file to an email in iOS. I can only send out a bunch of emails, from a bunch of apps, with the document they support.

Likewise, If I have a text document in iOS, I have no way to directly access that text document. I have to go to an app and hope that I can access the document from that app. If I created a text document in Simple Note, I have to remember I created it in Simple Note because chances are I can't easily open it in Drafts, much less in Apple's Notes app. If I have a Document in the Cloud, it's the same problem only worse. I can't just see Documents in the Cloud. I have to keep a mental list of what I've created over time and their associations, which is a lot of overhead for something that's supposed to be simple.

Here's a concept for a document picker, done almost exactly the same way iOS currently handles the image picker, and a Files.app with an interface in the same spirit as the Photos.app would go a long way to making iOS more convenient:

• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6

More granular privacy settings

Right now ifan app, any app, even a built-in Apple app, wants to know your location, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to send you Push Notifications, it has to ask for permission. If it wants to access Twitter integration, it has to ask for permission. If it wants access to any of your personal information, however, like Contacts, it doesn't have to ask at all.

Just like with Push Notifications back before iOS 5, however, their popup requester system doesn't scale. Right now, if you launch a new Twitter app for the first time and you get popup after popup, asking you to tap to approve Twitter account access, location, and Push Notification. Imagine when Contact access, Calendar access, and conceivably other information is added to the list. As the number of popups grow, the likelihood that a user will read and consider each one falls precipitously. They'll just start tapping through to get to their app.

Here's an attempt at a better solution beyond popups, and beyond Android's overkill, using a permissions sheet:

• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app permissions

More personalization options

Android has a stock interface, but with manufacturer layers like Sense, TouchWhiz, and Blur, apps that change keyboards, and many other options, you can often change your phone's appearance considerably and frequently.

Apple won't be making a Theme Store any time soon, but they could increase customization options in Settings, even if only for the Home screen and built-in apps. Rather than Aqua and Graphite like OS X, they could even call upon iOS conventions...

What iOS could take from BlackBerry

The traditional BlackBerry OS is a dinosaur soon to go the way of the dinosaurs, but there's still a few things iOS could learn from the old beast. Likewise, [BlackBerry 10]( won't be out until later this fall -- maybe around the same time as iPhone 5 and iOS 6 -- but what little we've seen of it shows potential.

More granular notification control

What if I want my iPhone to beep and buzz if my girlfriend calls, but not her mother? What if I want different tones or vibration patterns for work and personal email, or for my boss's or partner's email? What if I want notifications to demand my attention during the day, but mute themselves and let me sleep at night? What if I want a work-centric set of options when I'm at the job site, but a I don't want work following me home? While iOS currently has settings for notifications based on app, it doesn't have anywhere near BlackBerry's level of granularity.

That leaves implementing more specific settings up to individual apps, like Tweetbot and it's sleep options. iOS could handle that, both globally (a Notifications on/off toggle), per Contact, and including time and location.

(And, in the name of all that's civilized, there should be a way to suppress notifications when on a call so we no longer feel the shock of an unexpected tone/vibe combo punch to the ear.)

Arguably this might all be better handled as part of a greater iOS time- and location-based profile system that includes additional elements like network settings, Home screen layouts, and more but functionality always needs to be balanced by simplicity. While more granular notification options sound more complex, examples already exist in iOS -- like per-Contact ringtones -- that could be built out.

Better gesture shortcuts

With BlackBerry 10, RIM is trying to solve the problem of maintaining one-handed ease-of-use on larger screen sizes. For example, reaching all the way to the top of the screen to pull down the Notification Center shade is just doable for most users on a 3.5 inch screen, but as screens blow past 4 inches and approach 5, it breaks down. Like on the iPad's 9.6 inch screen, it requires a second hand.

RIM is relying far more heavily on gestures as a way around this. Start swiping with your thumb from offscreen to on, and a transitional notification bar comes up letting you "peek" at your alerts. Keep swiping, and it takes you into the messaging center where you can handle them. Swipe the other way, and you're in the app switcher grid, and then the app launcher.

Gestures are typically much harder to discover than buttons, and suffer from the potential for collision between system and app, (e.g. trying to slash something in Fruit Ninja and ending up in Mail), and the limits of manual dexterity and accuracy on small screen sizes.

That's probably why Apple restricted gesture shortcuts to the iPad in iOS 5 (and to developers only in iOS 4). However, there should be a balance that can be reached where gestures allow more advanced, adept users to more quickly navigate and triage elements of the OS and apps, even if the gestures to do so remain gross and few.

What iOS could take from webOS

webOS debuted at CES 2009 and was shown off by former Apple executive, Jon Rubenstein. It was the most impressive mobile product introduction since the iPhone in 2007, in part because Palm seemed to specifically target things the iPhone wouldn't, or couldn't yet do. And to this day, webOS still does some of those things better than iOS.

Better fast app switching interface

The current iOS fast app switcher does a good job listing open apps by putting them in a horizontally scrollable list, sorted in reverse chronological order. It does a great job making them easy to visually distinguish by using their icons. It does an okay job making them quick to switch between -- great if they're chronologically proximate, like jumping back and forth between two to four apps. (It's basically alt/cmd + tab for mobile, with some controls thrown in.) It also lets you kill apps.

webOS uses a metaphor called Cards, the early implementations of which showed one app or window (e.g. a website or email) in very similar fashion to iPhone Safari Pages. You could horizontally swipe between them but could also, very naturally, touch and flick a Card away to close an app or window. Palm later expanded the Cards visualization beyond what Apple did with Safari Pages by introducing Stacks in webOS 2.0.

It's a more approachable, more informational way of showing open apps and their state, and a more natural way of navigating and closing them. That's probably why Apple chose it for Safari Pages in iOS 1., and why almost every major OS uses some variation of it today. It's also probably why Apple supposedly experimented with a grid-based, Exposé version of it in iOS 4 before settling on the current, Dock-based model.

As the iPhone continues to evolve, and the mainstream market becomes more mobile-sophisticated, it could be worth re-assessing fast app switching on iOS.

Here's a more complete rundown of the history of fast app switching in mobile, and what some of those concepts might look like rendered in iOS.

• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?

Better account and social handling

My iCloud, Gmail, and Exchange contacts currently sit in the Contacts tab of my Phone app and in the Contacts app proper. My Twitter contacts have been recently integrated with them, but my Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social contacts still live in their own apps, though they can impregnate themselves into my Contacts app resulting in varying levels of chaos and confusion. It's a mess.

webOS Synergy handles this much, much more elegantly. You enter you account info, much as you do for email and Twitter in iOS now, but also Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sources that plug in to the system. Then all of that information is kept in neat silos behind the scenes, but presented as a unified view in the interface. I don't have to care where any particular bit of data comes from -- Gmail, Facebook, whatever -- I just see it all in one place, and any time any of those sources update, I see the updates.

Taking it a step further, messaging could be unified as well. Rather than having to go from Messages to Twitter to Facebook to Mail to see what Leanna is saying, a unified view of recent public status updates and private messages could be presented.

If I said something, and a contact of mine wants to find it, it makes a lot more sense for them to go right to my card than than to jump to and scour through a half dozen separate apps.

More actionable notifications

webOS still handles the arrival of notification banners, and the subsequent stacking of them, in a more elegant manner than iOS. But there seems like much more that could be done.

Currently, in iOS, notifications aren't actionable within the notification system. I can't "quick view" a Tweet or a Facebook message, I have to go to the Twitter or Facebook app. I can't "quick reply" to them in-app, I have to go back to the associated apps to respond. That either causes me to ignore messages I may not really wish to ignore, or to wrench myself out of what I'm doing to go handle them immediately.

By contrast, jailbreak apps like BiteSMS let you quickly respond to a text no matter which app you're in. Your app (or game) pauses, a text entry box is overlayed, you enter your message, you hit send, and you're current app resumes. With apps like LockInfo, you see an email notification, and you can tap a button, and read it without even unlocking your device.

Those may seem like subtle differences -- a pause of state rather than change of state and back -- but in practice it's far more efficient. It reduces a lot of friction, and makes the experience far, far better.

Here's some more behind the idea:

• iOS 6 wants: The opposite of widgets

What iOS could take from Windows Phone

Better inter-app communication

Currently the only way for iOS apps to exchange information is via the limited URL schemes protocol. Some amazing things can and have been done with it, perhaps none better than Launch Center and the upcoming Launch Center Pro. However, developers and users keep knocking their heads against that "limited" part.

Windows Phone 8 will employ something called "contracts", which will allow sandboxed apps to communicate with each other under certain, secure circumstances. For example, Instagram could present itself as a camera option, Sparrow as an email client, Elements as a text editor.

Then, other apps can hand off to those apps when they want or need to. We already see this done as a work around in iOS, for example, Tweetbot now gives you the option to take a photo with Camera+ instead of the built in Camera app, if you have Camera+ installed. The aforementioned Launch Center lets you tap a button to jump into an app and start an action, for example launch Tweetbot right into the new tweet sheet, or launch Safari right into a specific search.

It's tough to see Apple letting users set their own default apps, for example, set an alternate default browser to Safari. However, it's easier to see Apple creating a more robust system for inter-app communications than URL schemes.

Better gaming network

Microsoft is still kicking and screaming its way out of decades of disparate, non-interoperable systems, but they're starting to get it right. Xbox Live is an example of that. Sure, it costs a silly $50 a year for the far more useful Gold version, but it's otherwise well executed and is being pushed from TV to mobile with increasing efficiency.

Sure, Microsoft botched things badly by not calling their new mobile devices Xphones and having Halo-branded, Halo playing versions available at launch, but what they lack in smarts they make up for in tenacity.

Luckily for them, gaming is something Apple doesn't yet "get". But Apple's also showing signs that might change. Apple has already announced they're bringing Game Center to OS X Mountain Lion, for example.

But it needs to do more. Game Data sync, via iCloud, across devices is a start. If I'm playing Angry Birds on iPhone, I should be able to pick up my iPad and keep going, and then switch to Mac and keep on keeping on.

Cross-platform multiplayer will be a must-have soon as well. If I'm at the coffee shop gunning in N.O.V.A on my iPhone, I should be able to pwn Chad at home on his iMac, and Georgia at work on her iPad. (And, eventually, Simon on his Apple TV as well.) And hey, voice chat and beacons to let friends know what you're doing, and when, and to talk while doing it, would be nifty.

It's a lot of heavy lifting, but it's heavy stuff that needs to be lifted. (And yeah, I wouldn't say no to niftier avatars either.)

Better non-gaming network

Xbox live, wisely, wasn't called Xbox Gaming Live, because it's used for more than just gaming. All of Microsoft's living room ambitions are channeled through it, from Netfilx to social parties.

Even less than Apple gaming, Apple has repeatedly shown they don't understand social yet. Apple chose not to call their network Apple Live, but Game Center, for example. And they released Ping. But they do seem to know it's important. They're partnering with Twitter and might one day partner with Facebook. But Apple tends to like to own core technology.

iCloud is a good example and a good start towards a personal cloud. It needs an accompanying social cloud. Not just for sharing personal data like Calendars and Photo Streams with spouses and partners, but to share everything -- movie watching, music listening, app usage. Everything.

What iOS could take from jailbreak

Instead of competing platforms, Apple can also draw inspiration from their own platform -- as it's been tweaked and modified by jailbreak developers. They've done it before, so there's no reason they can't do it again.

A lot of it is similar to what I've already listed above -- the jailbreak community has been picking the slightly higher hanging fruit for years and years. The way they've implemented it is often different, however, and often several different implementations exist. That makes it an incredibly fertile ground, and a free, pro-level beta pool for Apple when it comes to large scale testing deployments of new features and interfaces.

Here's more on what Apple could explore from the jailbreak community this time around:

• Jailbreak concepts Apple should implement in iOS 6

What iOS could take from OS X

For a while now Apple has been working to take iOS "Back to the Mac" -- to take what worked best in iOS in general, and the iPad in specific back to the Mac. To make an Apple experience that's more consistent across their two platforms.

But how about a little quid pro quo? There are several aspects of OS X, including some of what's being implemented in Mountain Lion, that would be great to see in iOS.

More app loading options

The thing most power iPhone users have dreamed of since the original, no-third-party-apps iPhone launched in 2007 -- the thing that led to the jailbreak scene -- is the ability to side-load apps. The ability to run apps not approved by Apple. The ability to run app that come from outside the App Store.

With Gatekeeper in OS X Mountain Lion, users have a choice -- run only App Store apps, run App Store apps and non-App Store apps signed by identified developers, and run any app, no matter where it comes from. The App Store provides a lot of security -- it minimizes the chance for malware or other malicious software. It creates user trust. Non-App Store apps signed by identified developers is a good middle-ground, however. They don't need Apple approval but if any of them are found to be malicious, their certificate can be revoked.

Unfortunately, I don't think Apple would do this. It wouldn't really change the type of apps that are available -- for example, the system-level hacks of jailbreak -- and it would almost certainly lead to developers cutting Apple out of the 30% share of app sales Apple takes to maintain the App Store. Apple has shown they're not fond of end runs around the App Store for subscriptions, and they'd likely be even less so for paid apps.

More minor enhancements

• FaceTime conference calls. Like the iChat that Mountain Lion kills off, the big iPad screen -- especially a Retina display on a quad-core iPad 3! -- should allow for multi-person calling.
• Print to PDF. A built-in PDF printer option, perhaps added to AirPrint, that goes right to Documents in the Cloud, would be great for everything from Mail to Safari.
• Per-account mail signatures. No reason the current signature setting can't be moved down a step in the Settings hierarchy. Work and play can't always have the same signature.
• Top Sites for Safari. I could do without the forced curve effect, but quickly getting my most common sites as thumbnails is very convenient.
• Development options. Beyond Xcode, HTML5, and cross-compilers, support for other development options exists on OS X but not iOS.
• AirDrop. Quickly send files (from Files.app!) or photos from one iOS or OS X device to another over local Wi-Fi.

Here's more on what Apple could take from OS X and bring "Back to the iPhone and iPad":

• Back to the iPad: What Apple should take from OS X Mountain Lion and give to iOS 6

Conclusion

Operating systems are like art -- you add material then take away what you don't need. You add features and trim away bloat. While iOS may now be one of the older, more mature mobile operating systems, it's not perfect.

Just like OS X, Apple will keep adding features, then it will pause and re-soldify like it did with Snow Leopard, then focus anew like Lion and Mountain Lion.

The question is -- what will they do this time with iOS 6? Apple may or may not have plucked all the low hanging fruit in previous releases, but they haven't plucked all the fruit hanging just a slight bit higher. And they certainly haven't finished polishing it.

Timer is a new iPhone app by one of our favorite development teams, App Cubby. As its name implies, Timer is all about setting timers and doing it fast. And because it was designed by App Cubby, it also features a gorgeous design.

The best trait of Timer is its simplicity. It's a 3x4 grid of 12 buttons. The first 9 buttons are the default timers preset for 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. The bottom three buttons are for custom spur-of-the-moment timers that allow you to quickly set a timer for any length of time.

To start a timer, you simply tap its button. To stop it, tap it again. When the timer goes off, the button will blink (and a sound will of course be emitted) and a count-up timer will start in its place. Tap the button to stop the count-up timer.

Yes, you can set all 12 timers at once.

To edit the presets, simply hold down your finger on one of the buttons. The edit screen will slide up and allow you to set the timer length, alert sound, and button color. You can also disable the preset. Similarly, you can convert one of the non-presets into a preset by the same method.

My only real (and rather trivial) complaint about Timer is that you cannot rearrange the order of the presets. For example, I added a 4-minute timer (the time it takes to brew a French press of coffee), but since it replaced my first non-preset, it's not in numerical order like the other timers. I wish I could drag it up to appear after the 3-minute timer. Because I'm OCD, I opted to change the 2-minute timer to 3 minutes and the 3-minute timer to 4 minutes, instead. I'd love to see an Edit button added in the future.

The good

• Beautifully designed
• Amazingly simple
• Editable presets

The bad

• Can't reorder timers

The conclusion

Where has Timer been all my life? I keep saying it, but the simplicity of Timer is what makes it a total win.

$0.99 - Download Now

We've seen lots of the rumored iPhone 5's body by now, and now the front cover has been acquired and squared up against the iPhone 4S. The new FaceTime camera position lines up just fine with what we were seeing on the chassis, and when put on top of an iPhone we're all familiar with, we get a good sense of just how much bigger the iPhone 5 will be. Other pictures highlight the position of the light sensor (to the right of the iSight camera, and the proximity sensor (to the right of the earpiece).

Of course, this is all pre-release, so subject to change (or just being a Chinese knock-off) but the more we see these parts bubble up and remain consistent, the more likely it is that they'll turn out to be legit. We've already talked a lot about the pros and cons of a 4-inch iPhone and a 16:9 aspect ratio, but has your thinking changed at all after seeing the display size compared directly to your current iPhone? Is the long and thin look something you could get used to? How will this bigger screen impact battery life?

Source: Macotakara

A recent leak of an iOS 6 beta which is expected to launch next week at WWDC has revealed some interesting info about the upcoming iPhone 5. We've already seen plenty of what the exterior hardware will look like, but on the inside, we can expect a Samsung 5L8950X ARM processor that is internally branded as the A5-***. 

The processor is a step up from what's in the new iPad, so likely dual-core and built with 32 nm process. The graphic processing chip is apparently a SGX543RC*, which doesn't exist in any official capacity right now, so not much to run on there. The leak also confirms 1 GB of RAM, which is a nice step up from the iPhone 4S. The cellular baseband is the same Qualcomm chip used in the new iPad, but it's expected that the final product will have something from Gobi that would be compatible with China Mobile's TD-LTE network.

The source says iOS 6 is so far along that an iPhone 5 launch before the expected October window is entirely possible. Besides Apple's in-house maps app, there's apparently an all-new iOS app we'll see soon enough.

So that's a lot of juicy information, and combined with the shots of the external casing, we're starting to get a fairly complete picture of what the iPhone 5 will look like - provided it's all accurate, of course. Personally, I'm finding everything here is specific enough to be credible, but even so, there's a lot that's prone to last-minute changes before going into final production.  The main thing people seem concerned about is the 4-inch display, not necessarily going quad-core, or including LTE or NFC connectivity. What would you guys like to see under the hood of the iPhone 5? Is the iPhone 4S meeting your processing needs, or can Apple ill afford to release something with the same horsepower again?

Source: 9to5 Mac

iMore's authoritative guide to the very best Cydia apps, tweaks, and more for your jailbroken iPad

If you've already jailbroken your iPad on iOS 5.1.1 you'll probably want to start loading it up with the best jailbreak apps and tweaks Cydia, the jailbreak app store, has to offer.

Cydia has tons of great apps that you just can't get on the App Store but if you're new to jailbreak in general, or to iPad jailbreak in particular, you may not know where to begin. After you check out our list below you can check out our jailbreak starter's guide for even more tips and tricks. And don't miss our companion list, Best jailbreak apps for iPhone!

If you're a veteran jailbreaker and think we missed some of the very best jailbreak apps for iPad, let us know why you love them and we'll make sure we include them.

Check back often as we'll be updating this list as we find more great jailbreak apps for iPad.

System enhancements

Activator

If you've installed any kind of jailbreak app that uses springboard gestures, you probably already have Activator installed. Most jailbreakers will also tell you it's one of the few jailbreak tweaks they can't live without.

Activator allows you to set quick gestures on your iPad such as double tapping the status bar to bring up a quick compose message or swiping up from the bottom of the screen to toggle on or of Wi-Fi. There's tons of default toggles and gestures to configure and a lot of jailbreak apps will also be compatible with Activator. Just pop into settings and Activator to start customizing gestures.

Free - Cydia Search Link

NCSettings

If you want a way to activate quick toggles from your iPad within Notification Center, look no further than NCSettings. It's very similar to SBSettings but a lot simpler in premise and execution. I actually prefer it to SBSettings for toggles since it blends right into iOS 5 like it's meant to be there.

Just enable it within Notifications in Settings and then open Notification Center. You'll see a new top row of icons. You can customize the order and what ones show up in Settings and you're done. Super simple and it even looks like something Apple would design stock.

Free - Download Now

SBSettings

SBSettings has been around just about as long as jailbreak has. While it was obviously made for iPhone it also works on iPad. It's a great way to add quick toggles, manage memory, clear out running processes to free up memory, and more. If you're on iOS 5 it'll even integrate into Notification Center, just enable it in Settings under Notifications.

Since SBSettings has been around so long, there are tons of add-ons, themes, and other enhancements available in Cydia. I personally prefer the look and feel of NCSettings better on the iPad but if you need more than just toggles SBSettings will be a better option.

Free - Cydia Search Link

Quasar

Quasar is a nifty little tweak for iPad that allows you to run and view multiple open apps at once. It's very similar to expose on a Mac and aims to provide a desktop-like multitasking experience. Instead of having to run one app at at time, Quasar will open them in individual windows the same way a desktop computer would.

Quasar is also tied into the iOS app switcher which means whenever you perform an action like killing an app will kill it but closing a window in Quasar will still allow it to run in the background.

$9.99 - Cydia Search Link

Fullscreen for iPad

Fullscreen for iPad is a Safari plugin that not only brings fullscreen browsing to the iPad but adds true multitasking gestures and actions such as two and three finger swiping. By default you'll just have to double tap anywhere on a webpage to enter fullscreen mode. Double tapping again will exit fullscreen mode and bring back the address bar.

You can customize gestures and actions within the Settings panel however you'd like.

$2.19 - Cydia Search Link

Folder Enhancer & Infinifolders

Apple only allows you to stick 20 apps into a single folder on your iPad. If you're anything like me, you've got tons of games on your iPad. Apps like Folder Enhancer and Infinifolders remove the cap Apple has put in place and will allow you to put as many apps as you'd like inside a folder.

Both apps also take it a step further and will allow you to nest folders inside of each other just like you can on a desktop computer. I find this great for games so I can have one main games folder and sub-folders containing different types of games inside of that.

Folder Enhancer - $1.99 - Cydia Search Link

Infinifolders - $1.99 - Cydia Search Link

Notification enhancements

IntelliscreenX

While Notification Center was a great addition in iOS 5, it still leaves a lot to be desired. IntelliscreenX will allow you to fine tune notifications on your iPad just the way you'd like. You can even link Facebook, Twitter, RSS, feeds, and more straight in Notification Center. Just tab like you would through pages to view your Facebook Timeline, Twitter feed, and any other service you've linked.

Since Apple also left out the default apps on the iPad, you also won't get things like the weather widget within Notification Center. IntelliscreenX supports widgets and allows you to add several such as weather, SBSettings, and more.

$9.99 - Cydia Search Link

LockInfo

LockInfo is another notification enhancement app that'll do a lot of the same things IntelliscreenX does. I personally prefer IntelliscreenX over LockInfo due to the Messages+ integration but you may not.

LockInfo is just as full featured and functional as IntelliscreenX but in a different package. It offers a bit more fine tuned control over how it behaves than IntelliscreenX in some cases but the general settings are a bit more confusing. If you can get over the initial shock of how many options there really are, you'll realize how powerful it really is.

$7.99 - Cydia Search Link

It'll really be up to you which one you choose as both are great notification enhancement options for both iPhone and iPad, but if you need help deciding you can always check out our LockInfo vs IntelliscreenX comparison.

Customizing your iPad

Whether you just want to be able to customize the look and feel of your iPad or tweak the overall layout, there's tons of apps in Cydia available to get your iPad looking just the way you want it.

Apps like Springtomize 2, Winterboard, and Dreamboard will all help you theme out your iPhone and customize every little aspect of the overall look and feel. Change your dock, icons, fonts, menu bar colors, and every other visual element you can think of.

Springtomize 2 - $2.99 - Cydia Search Link

Winterboard - Free - Cydia Search Link

Dreamboard - Free - Cydia Search Link

Shrink

Maybe you don't want to completely theme your iPad but would like the ability to see more of the background picture behind your icons. I find Shrink perfect for this kind of task.

You can change the size of your dock and springboard icons within Settings. If you want to keep your dock icons at 100% but your page icons at 50%, you can do that. You can also remove icon labels from within Shrink.

$1.49 - Cydia Search Link

Gridlock

Just like with Shrink, if you want to view more of your background picture, Gridlock will come in handy. It simply allows you to move icons around on your iPad wherever you'd like. If you don't want a top row of icons or want them every other row, you can do so.

Organize however you want, wherever you want.

$0.99 - Cydia Search Link

What are your favorites?

Have any favorites you think should be on the list but aren't? Drop them in the comments below and tell us why you can't live without them. If you need more jailbreak help, tips, or suggestions, check out the resources below.

Additional Resources

• Best jailbreak apps for your iPhone
• LockInfo vs IntelliscreenX: which should you use?
• Jailbreak basics: everything you need to know
• Jailbreak apps, hacks, and themes forum

Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter for the film adaptation of Walter Isaacson's official Steve Jobs biography, was another high-profile guest being interviewed at the D10 conference this week.

Sorkin spoke in fairly general terms about the project, since it was still very early stage, but Sorkin was certainly worried how taking on such a project could just be a "minefield of disappointment" if he didn't get things just right and hoped that watchers would understand that these kinds of non-fiction movies were framed as a "painting and not a photograph". Sorkin admits that Jobs was a big enough deal to merit the second movie starring Ashton Kutcher, and though he admits that he still hasn't found a lead actor for his own film, he'll have to be smart "because you can't fake intelligence." What was particularly interesting was Sorkin's take on where Jobs fit in the hero/antihero spectrum:

He's an extremely complicated guy, that I know that for sure. Mark Zuckerberg is an extremely complicated guy as well. With as little as I know about Steve Jobs movie, I know this for sure: I can't judge the character. He has to for me be a hero. I have to find the parts of him that are like me, I have to be able to defend this character. With a character like Steve Jobs, or the character like David Sarnoff in the Farnsworth Invention... To put it as simply as possible, you want to write the character as if they are making their case to God why they should be allowed into heaven.

Hearing that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, to be honest. The official Steve Jobs biography was explicitly written to show both the flaws and the qualities of Apple's co-founder, not to be an embellishment. Of course, Sorkin's a seasoned author, with West Wing, A Few Good Men, The Social Network and much more to his credit, and I'm sure will include all of the interesting gritty parts of Jobs' life, but I think the last thing we want to see is a movie that amounts to little more than a beatification. That said, it will be interesting to see how Sorkin's movie stacks up against Jobs: Get Inspired, even if it comes out much later.

Source: AllThingsD

Most of the really interesting stuff from the D10 relating to Apple has come from the Tim Cook interview, but another interesting tidbit came from an interview with Spotify's Sean Parker and Daniel Ek. When asked if Apple had tried to stop Spotify from entering the U.S. market, Parker hesitantly answered:

There was some indication that that might have been happening. It's actually a very small industry in a lot of ways. It's certainly much smaller than it was 10, 12 years ago. It's a handful of guys who are really running this industry, and they tend to talk amongst each other about all this stuff. One of our core competencies (which is weird as a technology company) is our licensing and legal and negotiation framework. ... In that process you hear things - people send you e-mails. There is definitely a sense in which Apple was threatened by what we were doing, but realistically, what we're doing is still such a small part of their overall business. Even if their music store component of iTunes went away, it wouldn't be hugely significant to their bottom line.

Jobs had previously downplayed the value of subscription-based music services like Spotify, but it's hard to argue that there wouldn't be at least a little bit of overlap between markets of people who want to buy music a la carte, and those who want the all-you-can-hear buffet. Of course, Apple still gets a cut of subscriptions made through the App Store, and has been for Spotify ever since it hit iOS in 2009. More recently, Spotify launched a really nice iPad app.

It's hard to imagine Apple being remotely threatened by subscription services when those services rely on iOS devices to actually gain any traction. Spotify subscribers, do you still buy tracks on iTunes? iTunes shoppers, have you ever been tempted to sign up for Spotify or any other subscription-based music service?

Source: AllThingsD

Rene, Seth, and App Cubby's David Barnard start previewing WWDC 2012 and end up doing an deep dive in iOS 6 and how Apple could address app switching, inter-app communications, the Home screen, gestures, contact and social profiles, and more. And then talk Apple TV apps. This is iPhone & iPad Live!

• Subscribe via iTunes: Audio | Video
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Meta

• How to take irresistible photos of your pets with your iPhone
• Diet Coda vs. Gusto vs. Textastic: Code editor for iPad app shootout!
• Best cases for iPhone

iOS 6 speculation

• Apple releases WWDC 2012 schedule, Keynote set for Monday, June 11, 10am PDT
• Apple rumored to show off iTV operating system at WWDC
• New iOS 6 Maps app reportedly caught on blurry cropped cam, mocked-up
• iOS 6: Is it time for Apple to revamp the multitasking fast app switcher?
• The 16:9 iPhone
• How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6
• iOS 6 and the opposite of widgets
• Is it time for Apple to revamp the Home screen?
• The challenge of bringing Siri to the iPad
• iOS 6 and privacy: How Apple should draw inspiration from Android for better app

Hosts

• Seth Clifford (@sethclifford)
• David Barnard (@drbarnard)
• Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie)

Credits

You can reach all of us on Twitter @iMore, or you can email us at podcast@imore.com, or leave a comment on the website when the show goes live.

We're live every Wednesday night at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern, 2am GMT at www.imore.com/live

For all our podcasts -- audio and video -- including iPhone and iPad Live, ZEN and TECH, Iterate, and more, see MobileNations.com/shows

If you haven't already please subscribe to all our shows in iTunes and leave a rating. It helps people find the show and means a lot to us!

Thanks to the iMore Accessory Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

For today only, the iMore Store has the Qmadix Bezel Slide-On Cover for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 on sale for only $32.95! That's a whopping 45% off. Get yours before they're gone!

The Qmadix Bezel Slide-On Cover for iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4 combines revolutionary design with true innovation in a slim profile aluminum case.

This forward thinking protective solution utilizes a brilliant slide-locking mechanism that ensures a seamless fit. The Bezel Slide-On Cover exceptional ergonomics and is tooled from aircraft grade aluminum for a flawless fit and finish.

Features:

• Precise, custom fit for iPhone 4S, AT&T iPhone 4, or Verizon iPhone 4
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• Protects against scratches and bumps
• Easy to install and remove
• Aircraft grade aluminum case

Shop the Qmadix Bezel Slide-On Cover for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 now!

Cricket Communications will become the first US carrier to offer the iPhone on a pre-paid plan starting on June 22; the offer will include both the iPhone 4 and the latest iPhone 4S.

Our customers want the best products available and we are excited to bring iPhone to our pre-paid consumers with an industry leading $55 per-month service plan," said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer, Leap Wireless International, Inc. "Launching iPhone is a major milestone for us and we are proud to offer iPhone customers attractive nationwide coverage, a robust 3G data network and a value-packed, no-contract plan." iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 will be available in Cricket company-owned stores and select dealers in nearly 60 markets, online at www.mycricket.com/iphone and over the phone at 800-853-7682. Starting today, customers can receive more information on the launch by registering at www.mycricket.com/iphone

As this is a pre-paid contract there is a large upfront fee payable for the iPhone that you choose. The iPhone 4 has only been available in an 8GB version since the launch of the iPhone 4S but Cricket are offering it in a choice of black and white  at an upfront cost of $399.99. The iPhone 4S is the entry level 16GB version again available in black or white with a price point of $499.99.

The contract free pre-paid agreement costs $55 a month and provides unlimited voice minutes and unlimited SMS messages. Data is classed as unlimited but has the dreaded fair usage policy which is set in this instance at 2.3GB a month.

Taking everything into account, would you consider buying your iPhone via this route or is the subsidized handset model still more appealing?

Source: Cricket PR via TNW

Complete press release:

Cricket Wireless to Offer iPhone on June 22

Unlimited Talk, Text and Data for Just $55 a Month

SAN DIEGO, May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Cricket Communications, Inc., a leading provider of innovative and value-driven wireless services, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless International, Inc. (NASDAQ: LEAP), announced today that it will be the first pre-paid carrier in the US to offer iPhone to its customers. Beginning on Friday, June 22, Cricket will offer iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 with its $55 per-month, all-inclusive unlimited talk, text and data plan.

iPhone 4S is the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible features including Apple's dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all-new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. iPhone 4S comes with iOS 5.1, the world's most advanced mobile operating system; and iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

"Our customers want the best products available and we are excited to bring iPhone to our pre-paid consumers with an industry leading $55 per-month service plan," said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer, Leap Wireless International, Inc. "Launching iPhone is a major milestone for us and we are proud to offer iPhone customers attractive nationwide coverage, a robust 3G data network and a value-packed, no-contract plan."

iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 will be available in Cricket company-owned stores and select dealers in nearly 60 markets, online at www.mycricket.com/iphone and over the phone at 800-853-7682. Starting today, customers can receive more information on the launch by registering at www.mycricket.com/iphone. iPhone 4S will be available for $499.99 for the 16GB model and iPhone 4 will be available for $399.99.

Cricket's service plans feature all-inclusive pricing and easy-to-understand pricing packages with no service fees or overage charges. For customers, that means a bill that doesn't fluctuate based upon monthly usage. Cricket's all-inclusive pre-paid smartphone service plan includes:

• Monthly Fee $55
• Voice (minutes) Unlimited
• SMS Unlimited
• Data Unlimited (Fair usage policy of 2.3GB per month.)
• iPhone 4S 16GB $499.99
• iPhone 4 8GB $399.99

For more information about Cricket's dynamic service and to check for availability, visit www.mycricket.com. To follow Cricket's latest news and updates online, visit Facebook at www.facebook.com/cricketwireless and Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cricketnation.

For more information on iPhone 4S, please visit: www.apple.com/iphone

With Quip, you'll never feel lost in a Twitter conversation again

Quip is a new Twitter app for the iPad designed by the incredible development team Glasshouse Apps. I know what you're thinking: "another Twitter app?" Yes, but Quip is no ordinary Twitter app. Quip takes a refreshing approach that focuses on making it easy to follow conversations.

Imagine trying to follow a conversation in real life if the group of people involved all spoke backwards while others nearby kept interrupting with random comments. It sounds crazy but that's what it can often be like when scanning a normal Twitter timeline.

Ain't that the truth!

Quip features a very nice dark-themed UI that has a greater emphasis on looks than it does information density. Avatars are displayed very big with speech bubbles containing the tweets. It looks really great, but it does come at the cost of only displaying 4 tweets at a time in landscape orientation, six in portrait.

But the extra space between tweets isn't just for looks, it actually serves a very important purpose. For tweets that are part of a conversation, the avatars of the users that have participated in the conversation appear in the space below the tweet. It's an awesome visual cue. When you tap on a tweet that's part of a conversation, the small avatars below the tweet will move below the tweet and display their replies, in order, nested underneath the main tweet.

I absolutely love this approach to Twitter conversations. Many Twitter apps will display the conversations in order, but Quip is the first do it so elegantly without changing screens. I would love to see Glasshouse apps take this idea a little further and display the replies at various nesting levels. This would make following conversations even easier.

In addition to the traditional tabs that you'll find in any Twitter client, Quip also includes a tab for conversations, one for retweets, and another for photos. The conversation and retweet tabs only show tweets that are part of a conversation or that have been retweeted.

Similarly, the photos tab only shows tweets that contain photos, but instead of displaying the tweets, it displays a grid of the photos. Tapping on the photo will enlarge it and display its associated tweet below it.

The direct messages tab takes a similar visual approach and instead of displaying a list of all the users you have direct messages with, it displays their avatars with little icons that indicate how many messages you have with that user.

The good

• Beautiful design
• Revolutionary approach to twitter conversations
• Conversations, retweet, and photos tabs
• Photos tab displays grid of photos that have been tweeted
• Direct messages tab shows grid of user avatars

The bad

• Scrolling and animations have the tendency to lag
• No light theme

The conclusion

I've only been using Quip for a few hours, but I'm already a huge fan. It's a fresh approach to a popular genre of apps and I applaud Glasshouse Apps for creating such a beauty. However, some work can definitely be made in the performance area as scrolling and animations do tend to lag. It's not enough to destroy the experience, but it's noticeable. With that said, I'm confident that Glasshouse Apps will release a fix shortly.

$0.99 - Download Now

All Steve Jobs appearances at the All Things D conference have now been made available as podcasts on iTunes. There are many videos of Steve Jobs around today, there are a lot of him presenting at product launches and of course his famous Stanford commencement but there are very few actual sit down interviews. Thankfully All Things D has decided to release its collection of six interviews where Jobs answers unrehearsed questions and gives his views on technology and business.

In these onstage conversations, Jobs explained his — and Apple's — evolving philosophy of where the digital world was heading, and of business itself. He discussed competitors, controversies and his own sense of what matters most. He stressed the importance of building products for their actual users, not "orifices" like corporate IT departments or cellphone carriers. He explained why it was often more important to decide what products and features not to build than to pick the ones that were built. He even appeared jointly in a historic conversation with his lifelong rival, Bill Gates.

The podcasts are available from iTunes now and are available as video podcasts or as audio only podcasts. If you haven't managed to catch any of these interviews over the years then you have missed out on some wonderful dialogue and insight into the mind of Steve Jobs. Now you have another chance to see them in high quality thanks to All Things D and Apple.

Video Podcasts - Download Now

Audio Podcasts - Download Now

Source: All Things D

You'll hear a lot more discussion of this at the tail end of tonights iPhone & iPad Live podcast with Seth Clifford of Nickelfish and David Barnard of App Cubby, but as rumors are spreading that WWDC 2012 might bring with it an "App Store" for Apple TV, I wanted to get something up on the site about it as well.

Issues involving the navigation of large app quantities on a TV, the limitations of the current remote, and Siri control aside, I'm having a hard time seeing an Apple TV "App Store" in the same sense as the existing iPhone and iPad App Store. .

There are 600,000 plus apps on the iOS App Store and a lot of them just don't make sense on a TV.

iPhones, iPods, and iPads are personal devices. TVs are social devices. On an iPhone or iPad, I can be watching a show or a game, and a notification can come up, and I can switch away to handle it, and I can come back to my show or game when I'm ready.

If I'm watching a show or game on my TV and I switch away to check a web link or answer a tweet ("Wow, did you see how GSP ended that fight?!"), I'm going to get punched by the friend or family member next to me. If a friend or family member switches away to Facebook or Messages ("Has he left yet baby? Can I come over?"), they're getting punched. (In a figurative, loving, non-violent, hurts-like-hell-in-the-shoulder way, I swear.)

That kind of activity is also unnecessary, because we have iPhones, iPods, and iPads, and those secondary and tertiary screens let us do personal things like message or research, while watching TV, without impacting the other people watching TV. They also let us share anything we come across via AirPlay.

Media apps like the already present Netflix makes sense on an Apple TV. NBC, BBC, HBO, Disney, etc. would all make sense there. As channels. Having them in a "Store" with subscriptions makes more sense than just putting them all onto the screen, since the new Apple TV UI doesn't seem elegant even under the existing app load.

Twitter doesn't. Elements doesn't. Arguably even Safari and maybe even games make more sense as a phone or tablet apps that AirPlay can share with the Apple TV, than as a stand-alone apps on Apple TV. (And boy is the concept of automatic, AirPlay-triggered 10-foot UI for existing apps interesting.)

Moreover, even if Apple TV sales double this year, at 6 million units sold they'd still be nothing but a hobby compared to iPhone and iPad sales. Apple operates the current App Store at just above break even in order to have software sales fuel hardware sales. If they reversed that cheap-blades-to-sell-expensive-razors strategy and went to a more traditional cheap-razors-to-sell-expensive-blades model, dealing with the collective pains in the asses that comprise media companies just for a cut of subscription revenue doesn't seem worth the effort for Apple. The ROI just doesn't seem as high as the existing iOS hardware business.

There are a lot of to-be-announced (TBA) sessions on the WWDC schedule this year, and that has some very smart people like John Gruber thinking they may be filled with Apple TV API sessions. And maybe they will.

However, in the risky game of Apple predictions, I think it far more likely they'll be filled with iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion sessions instead. Or as Matt Panzarino from The Next Web suggested, an Apple TV/Siri/Facebook combo platter.

Developers will go where the money and market is, and right now everything is eclipsing the living room.

If there is an App Store for Apple TV, I'm guessing it would be far, far more limited in scope, and in accessibility than the iPhone and iPad App Stores. At least at first.

The Apple TV 1080p debuted as little more than a peripheral for the new iPad back in March. Apple may see something in the TV market that encourages them to keep the hobby going, but it's tough to see an iPhone and iPad style App Store being that. It's easier to see Apple thinking something just a little different.

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• Sharing files from HDD to iPad
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Word has it that Apple has picked up an Italian developer called Redmatica, which makes Mac music editing software called Keymap Pro, among other products. Last night, Tim Cook mentioned that Apple doesn't tend to be particularly public with its acquisitions, so there's no official confirmation about the buy, but there are some pretty solid documents backing up the rumor from the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority.

Obviously Apple is looking to beef up their GarageBand team, which is good news for iOS fans that have spent a lot of time with the lightweight audio editor. Redmatica also produces software that imports audio to GarageBand for iOS from a Mac called GBSamplerManager. With it, your Mac can be used as a sample workstation for the iOS app, which includes editing waveforms, shuffling libraries, and importing EXS24 format audio (which is also used in Apple's Logic Studio).

The collaborative jam session update to GarageBand didn't particularly entice me, but the app has a solid following among casual and serious musicians alike. It seems like iMovie maintains the broadest appeal out of all of Apple's stand-alone iOS apps, but what's your favorite? Is there anything in particular that you would like to see added to GarageBand? Any used Redmatica's software in the past that can comment on its quality or features?

Source: TechCrunch