Send Money By Bumping iPhones; Split Check With Contacts With PayPal’s New iPhone App
PayPal, eBay's popular online transaction division has released a new version of their iPhone application that gives the app a much needed face-lift.
In addition to this, PayPal 2.0 also brings several exciting new features to the iPhone that could make the app all the more useful.
Bump to Send Money:
PayPal has partnered with Bump Technologies to offer an easy way for users to initiate transactions with friends by bumping their iPhones together. The prominent display of the easy-to-use bump feature in the new version of the app is possibly an attempt at making PayPal the platform of choice among friends to send and receive money.
Split the Check:
The iPhone app offers an easy way to split bills, calculate tips and instantly request contacts for their share of the bill.
PayPal's updated iPhone app also includes:
- Withdraw PayPal funds to local bank account
- Request contacts for money
- Set reminders to pay rent or bills
- Refer the app to a friend
PayPal is among the earliest iPhone apps to be available on the App Store and it continues to be a popular way for iPhone users to make transactions on the go. The new design and features should make the process much simpler and intuitive especially to transfer money between friends. If you wish to install this app, you may do so by clicking here (iTunes Link).
Bump to send money and split the check are quite cool features. As always, do let us know your views on PayPal's new iPhone app in the comments section below.
[via TechCrunch]
New Bing iPhone App Includes Bookmarks, Location Based Search, Parental Controls & More
Microsoft has released an updated version of their iPhone app that is now available for download from the App Store.
The new version of the app fixes a lot of stability and design issues besides introducing a few nifty features.
Here is a run-down of the major additions in the new version of Bing's iPhone app
Bookmarks: The Bing app now makes it easy for users to bookmark any page from the app including maps, business listings, search results, directions and weather reports. These bookmarks may be directly accessed from the Bing homepage.
Location Based Search: The new Bing app makes it extremely easy to search for results based on your current location. Users may also choose to search around specific locations using the location settings on the application.
Parental Control: The new Bing app introduces stricter parental controls by offering users to secure SafeSearch levels for their apps with passcodes to protect kids from unsafe results.
Besides these updates, there are also significant additions like:
- Easy link sharing
- Copy paste URLs
- Search from history
- Private search
- Integration of contacts in directions
Bing's new iPhone app has also added support to the first generation of iPod Touch. The application has been extremely popular on the App Store and has been downloaded over a million times in the three months since it was released.
Update:
For some strange reason, Microsoft seems to have removed its Bing iPhone app from all the International App Store. According to Neowin, Microsoft had this to say about the sudden disappearance of the Bing iPhone app from the App Stores:
"When we released the iPhone application we inadvertently made it available to all countries in which the Apple Marketplace has a presence. We noticed the error within 24 hours and took steps to remove availability for all countries except for the US."
Microsoft hopes to re-release their iPhone app on the International App Store sometime in the future but hasn't given any dates. Neowin points out:
"Microsoft originally released the Bing iPhone application in December 2009. It's not clear why it took three months to remove the availability for all countries except the U.S."
Interested readers in the US can check out Bing's iPhone app from the App Store by clicking here (iTunes link).
This brings me to the question that I wanted to ask you folks for quite sometime now. I personally prefer to search on the web using iPhone's Safari browser (Google as the default search engine) rather than use a native iPhone app. How about you? Do you use Google Mobile App or Bing app on your iPhone? Let us know in the comments.
Multi-tasking On iPhone With Multifl0w Jailbreak Application
One of the most popular app among jailbroken iPhone users is Backgrounder - the free app that allows you to multitask; a feature almost omnipresent among smartphones but something that remains unavailable for iPhone users till date.
Now here is another iPhone app that improvises on Backgrounder to create a better multitasking experience (think Palm Pre).
Backgrounder lets you open multiple applications and also helps in identifying all these iPhone apps running in the background with a badge. With mutifl0w, you may additionally slide through all the open apps and easily toggle between them. Double-tapping your iPhone home button takes you to the multifl0w screen where all the open apps are displayed. Tapping on an iPhone app displays it in full screen for you to work on while the other apps continue to run in the background. It helps if you are on iPhone 3GS since the higher RAM capacity means you can toggle between lot more iPhone apps.
Multifl0w is currently available for iPhone OS 3.0 and above and is built over Backgrounder. There are a few minor bugs at this moment though, which includes a springboard crash when the multifl0w app is opened simulataneously with another loading app. However, the app developer says updates would soon be made available for these.
The app is already available on Rock and should also be available on Cydia soon. While you do have a free trial, the jailbreak iPhone app costs $4.99, which we feel is slightly higher considering that the base app Backgrounder and the other popular multitasking app for jailbroken iPhones, Kirikae are both free.
Nevertheless, $5 is still a small price to pay for such a valuable utility denied for quite sometime by Apple as running multiple applications could drain your iPhone's battery quickly. If you have downloaded multifl0w, please don't forget to tell us your experience.
[via AppAdvice]
ProSwitcher – Free Multitasking iPhone Application
Those of you who had tried the beta version of the free multitasking iPhone app for jailbroken iPhones, Proswitcher, will vouch for the fact that this is one of the best multitasking app available for iPhones.
Now, good news folks. The iPhone app just has been officially released and includes more enhancements.
When we had written about the beta version of the app earlier this month, we had a lot of positive things to say about it. Not only does this iPhone app integrate very seamlessly with the native look and feel of the iPhone, but also it consumes way less memory than the other popular multitasking app, multifl0w. Available for free against the $5 that you had to shell out for multifl0w, this was no doubt a very good deal.
Having said that, the official release now comes with a lot more enhancements as well. Here is what you get to have in addition to what was available in the beta version:
App Card Badges: The app card badges display new notifications from the app running in the background everytime you launch Proswitcher. For instance, new mail notifications on your mail app will now be visible at the top right corner of the app card.
Set Home Screen: This is a new option available in the Settings. By using this option, you can choose whether to view the ProSwitcher screen or the Home Screen every time you close a running app.
Bigger Active Card: The beta version of ProSwitcher displayed all iPhone apps running in the background in the same size. Now, the active card alone is shown in a bigger size over the other running apps. This is not a major change, but definitely has a better appeal.
If you are interested in trying this iPhone app out, you can download it from Cydia on your jailbroken iPhone. As always, don't forget to tell us how you find the new iPhone app.
[Via Iphonehacks]
Circuitous – Multitasking iPhone Application
There are quite a few multitasking apps for jailbroken iPhones. While apps like ProSwitcher and Multifl0w do a good job, here is another jailbreak iPhone app that offers another good user experience to toggle between iPhone applications.
Dan Zimmerman, the developer behind Circuitous calls it a "custom app switcher".
Circuitous is an app that provides a clean interface to switch between the various active iPhone applications. Unlike ProSwitcher and Multifl0w where users need to move away from the existing iPhone app to surf through other active applications, Circuitous displays all the active iPhone apps in a vertical dock that can be accessed from any screen of your iPhone.
Using Circuitous, it is possible to activate the custom dock through several shortcuts like short-holding the Sleep button, double pressing the Home button or double tapping the status bar on your iPhone. Also, users may cycle forward or backward through the various open applications using shortcuts like the ones mentioned above. All these customizations may be made via iPhone Settings. Check out the video below to see Circuitous in action:
Circuitous is available for free on Cydia and Rock. The new version of Circuitous (v1.1) also offers additional features like closing and reordering active iPhone apps with simple gestures. Do checkout the iPhone app and let us know if you think its better than ProSwitcher or Multifl0w.
[via ModMyi]
How to Create a Cydia Repository for the iphone
A Cydia Repository which is much like an Installer source, is also a way to host your own files, like applications, themes, and wallpapers on Cydia. Cydia is the unofficial application distribution app for jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches for applications that could not make it to the official app store managed and run by apple.
Now this is a guide on creating your own repository for cydia, and no, you don't need a website of your own to do it! Note that while the screenshots within this guide were taken on a Mac, you can easily follow this tutorial with Debian (see "What's Needed if you have no idea what the heck I'm talking about).
Important: There are steps in the guide where I'll instruct you to copy text from this page into a Text Editor and into Terminal. Unfortunately, due to this forum's restrictions on the number of images allowed within a post (6), I had to convert about 90% of the guide into one big image, so you'll have to manually type the text in. Sorry about that.
Also, you may have already seen that this guide is pretty long. Don't get scared and decide not to try; it's only long because I wanted to make it as detailed as possible. Doing this is not as hard as it looks.
First off, check out the EverythingiCafe Cydia Repository before you create your own. If all you want is a place to host your files, we'll host your stuff for you. If you want your own repository, carry on.
What's Needed
• Internet Access
• Basic Text Editor
• Either a Virtual Machine with Debian installed, a computer
running Debian, or a Mac with Fink installed.
• Either a website of your own or a free sub-domain with FTP access (Your own website is recommended, but if you're going to use the latter of the two, I suggest using 110mb.com.)
Here is tutorial for how to create a cydia repository for iphone: http://kttns.org/nmuym
Stop the Auto Play Pop Up When You Plug In Your iPhone or iPod Touch to a Windows XP Computer
Every single time I plug in my iPhone to my Windows XP computer I get a pop up window asking how I want to handle the images from the iPhone. The most annoying part of this is there is no way from that pop up to tell the computer that you don’t want to be asked every single time. The good news is that it is really easy to tell your computer you do not want to be asked every single time. Follow the instructions below to turn off the pop up every time you plug in your iPhone to your Windows XP computer.
iPhone Pop Up on Windows XP:
Windows XP: Disable Auto Play Pop Up for iPhone
- Plug In iPhone:First make sure your iPhone or iPod Touch is plugged into your computer and finished syncing with your iTunes.
- Open Control Panel:First open your control panl by clicking on the Start menu and selecting Control Panel from the pop up navigation. A view of the control panel is shown below.
- Open Scanners and Cameras: Now double click on the “Scanners and Cameras” link to open a list of the scanners and cameras currently connected to your computer.
- iPhone Camera Properties: Right click on the iPhone in the list of Scanners and Cameras to display a menu as shown below.
Select Properties from the menu to open the iPhone camera properties configuration window as shown below.
- Modify iPhone Camera Events: Click on the Events tab in the iPhone camera properties configuration window as shown below.
Select the “Take no action” radial and then click the Apply button to save. OK out of this configuration window and close the Control Panel.
- Verify No Pop Up: Now unplug your iPhone and plug it in again to trigger the synchronization process with iTunes. You should no longer receive a pop up from the Windows Auto Play feature.
Now you can plug your iPhone into your Windows XP computer without having to close out the Auto Play prompt every time.
Install istat On a CentOS Linux to Monitor Server from iPhone or Touch
The istat application is a monitoring application that can be used to obtain basic Linux server information from your iPhone or iPod Touch phone. This application has the ability to monitor CPU Usage, Memory Usage, Disk Usage, CPU Load, and Server Uptime among many others.
To install istat on CentOS Linux follow the directions below.
- Download istat: Download istat for Linux here.
- Configure istat: Unpack the istat package you downloaded from Google Code and change the directory into the newly created istat directory. Once in this directory type the below command to configure istat for your server.
-
./configure
-
- Install istat: Now issue the make and make install commands to compile and install istat on your server.
-
make
-
make install
-
- Create istat User: Now issue the below command to create a istat user to run istat.
-
useradd istat
-
- Create istat Directory: Use the below syntax to create a directory to store the istat.pid file which needs to be readable/writeable by the istat user you just created.
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mkdir /var/run/istat
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chown istat.istat /var/run/istat
-
- Configure istat: Now make necessary configuration changes to the /usr/local/etc/istat.conf configuration file. The typical changes include modifying the server_code which is the access code used by your iDevice to obtain the server information, monitor_net which is the interface istat will listen for incoming connections, and monitor_disk which needs to be changed to the proper mounts such as /dev/hdb1, /dev/hdc1, etc.
- Launch istat: Now launch the istat daemon by issuing the below command.
-
/usr/local/bin/istatd &
The server will automatically launch with the istat user and listen on port 5109.
-
- Connect From iPhone: Now configure the new server within istat on your iPod Touch or iPhone. Once you do so click on the server, type in the password you set in step 6, and verify you are collecting all of the server statistics properly.
The istat application is a nifty little application to provide you a quick view of servers on your network or servers that you monitor outside of your network. More information about the iPhone version of istat can be located here.
Step-by-Step Guide to Unlock iPhone 3GS running iPhone OS 3.0 using Purplesn0w
As we all know, after releasing the jailbreak software for iPhone 3GS, Geohot also released his unlock method for iPhone 3GS.
Purplesn0w developed by Geohot is an alternative to ultrasn0w developed by the iPhone Dev Team to unlock iPhone 3GS. Geohot claims that his unlocking software actually improves on some of the common issues faced by using the ultrasn0w developed by the iPhone Dev team.
The improvements mentioned by Geohot are as follows:
- Corrects the Wi-Fi connectivity bar that does not show full signal strength
- Reduces the rapid battery drain
- Fixes some miscellaneous unlock related issues
Some important points before we start:
- This guide is only for iPhone 3GS users, if you are an iPhone 3G user, please check out our step-by-step guide to unlock iPhone 3G running iPhone OS 3.0 using UltraSn0w.
- To use this guide, you must have a jailbroken iPhone 3GS and the iPhone OS 3.0 installed. Please checkout our guide to jailbreak iPhone 3GS on Windows. Alternatively, you can check our guide to jailbreak iPhone 3GS using Redsn0w for Windows users or this one Mac users.
- If you are on a T-mobile network or any carrier without 3G support then, please disable the 3G service before proceeding.
Tap Settings icon > Go to General > Go to Network > Turn OFF the Enable 3G option.
Step 1: Launch Cydia on your iPhone
Step 2: Press the Manage tab at the bottom of the Cydia Home Screen.
Step 3: On the Manage section of Cydia, click on the second option named Sources.
Step 4: Now press the Edit button displayed on the top right corner of the screen.
Step 5: Press the Add button displayed on the top left corner of the screen.
Step 6: The screen will display a text box where you have to enter apt.geohot.com as the URL and press the Add Source button.
Step 7: Install com.geohot.purplesn0w
Step 8: As a final step, press the Home button and power OFF and then power ON your iPhone. You can do this by following the sequence:
i. Press the Home button for about 3 seconds
ii. Press the Power button on your iPhone
iii. Move the slider to the right. This will power OFF your iPhone
iv. While keeping the Home button pressed - press the Power button again to power ON your iPhone.
Step 9: You should now be able to insert any SIM card you want in your newly unlocked iPhone 3GS!
If you hit any issues with purplesn0w then you can try UltraSn0w by the Dev Team which also unlocks iPhone
3GS. You can checkout our step-by-step guide to unlock iPhone 3GS running iPhone OS 3.0 using UltraSn0w