The New iPhone 5: Why iOS 6 Ruins it

Today is the day apple fans have been waiting for. The new iPhone 5 is going to be released to the public today. So what's new?

Well, for one the phone is thinner, lighter, and has a bigger screen. The specs for the iPhone 4s were:

• Height: 4.5 inches (115.2 mm)
• Width: 2.31 inches (58.6 mm)
• Depth: 0.37 inch (9.3 mm)
• Weight: 4.9 ounces (140 grams) 

The iPhone 5 will be 18% thinner, 20% lighter, and have a bigger screen.

Speed wise the iPhone 5 will also feature a 'zippy A6 chip,' hopefully making app switching and running angry birds even faster. There will also be a new 'iSight' camera that will capture pictures 40% faster. 4G-LTE has been added, catching up to faster network times for other phones.

Apple has also added additional microphones, for a total of 3, that will improve facetime, along with an improved face facing camera. Speakers have been updated, to add "wideband audio" to give a fuller sound.

All of these hardware updates are great, but what new things will the phone be able to do? Along with the hardware improvements the new iPhone will be running iOS 6. This ios update should add some new mapping features, (turn by turn directions and prettier images) an additional row of icons, and more social network integration.

You heard right. Not the UI improvements we've all been begging for. Not widgets, or customization, or a more open file system. More facebook, twitter, and square icons. Nothing worth mentioning to get iOS up to date with Android. This is fine for the average business man (in fact for some it could be a plus) and Apple fanboy, but for people who want to get the most out of their smartphone, enough is enough. If all you can do with your phone is play angry birds, the screen size and A6 processor become fairly irrelevant.  Although the literal phone may be getting faster, slimmer, and lighter, this is one update worth skipping out on. I don't care how fast or how well your iPhone can run iOS 6, in the end its still running iOS 6.


G+

Review of the Week; Textfree

Hey, generic reader! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've had to deal with school and all those other crappy events in life that lead up to your death. After thinking about how to keep my posts at least semi-regular I've decided I'm going start doing a review of the week. I'll probably alternate from things that I hate and things that I love. In this case it's the thing I love is the iPod app Textfree, (with voice) but in future weeks could could range from on politics I love to zebras I hate. Rest assured my weekly review will add that quaint sense of routine you've been craving to your week, no matter what.

Textfree

Do you own an iPod, iPad, or iPhone without calling services? Would you rather not pay $20 a month or whatever arm and a leg price is currently going for cell phone service? If you answered yes to either of these questions then Textfree's might be the solution for you. If you answered no to these questions you should ask siri why you're such a rich-ass snob well informed consumer.
     The intermediate internet user definition for Textfree is: a VoIP (voice over IP) and sms app. The stupid-proof normal definition for Textfree is: a turn your iPod 4g (lower generation iDevices can still you sms) into an iPhone app. That's right, with Textfree you can call and text your richer-than-thou phone owning friends over WiFi. A new update has even added voice messages. What's the catch, you ask? Well, you'll have to watch a few 1 minute adds to add calling time to your newly made iPhoneFree, but it only takes a few minutes to add more time than you'll ever use anyways and should be fairly painless.



*possibly incomplete and definitely insulting post

Top Cydia Apps

There are tons of great apps on cydia. The problem is that there are even more useless apps cluttering most sources than there are good ones. This top 6 list (I'll probably be this updating to a top 10 eventually) sheds some light on my favorite apps from cydia. (Note that installer is not on this list, you should support developers so they can make more apps you love)


SBSettings

This tweak allows you to swipe across your status bar for a drop down menu that holds toggles for certain settings. There are tons of toggles that you can download as addons from cydia. My favorite toggle is processes which lets you kill apps and free up memory to speed up your iDevice. You can also adjust your brightness, turn off bluetooth, reboot/respring/power off all from the same convenient drop down menu.


iFile

This app might not be the first, but it's definitely the best and most fully featured file browser for ios. Some of the features include: copy and pasting files, editing plists, viewing pictures, editing text and word documents, transferring files over bluetooth/http, and even more. This is generally the first app I download after jailbreaking.


Mobile Terminal

Mobile terminal is a great app for all of your hacking and developing needs, or even just looking 1337 in front of your friends. Of course typing on the small touch screen for too long isn't very enjoyable, so make sure you follow this to learn how to setup ssh in my follow up post.

*note that updated versions of mobile terminal are not on default repos, so you might have to install this app from the ininjas repo*


AptBackup

This app backs up your cydia apps so you can easily get them back after a restore. 'Nuff said ;)


Atube

Atube lets you download and watch YouTube videos on your iPhone. A great way to find some music videos you normally couldn't even watch on the YouTube default app and add them to your library.

Card Switcher

This app was made to simulate WebOS features and allows you to switch between, close, and preview apps all from the sleek card interface. I'd wait for the upcoming Card Switcher 2, (which will supposedly include new features such as vortex, a windows manager for the iPad and tabbed switching) but if you're impatient it's only $1.99 from the big boss repo.

Grooveshark

Grooveshark is easily the best music app for the iPhone. Ever. Tons of free music from any artist you could ask for available for streaming or download, a sleek interface, and even decent radio settings. The catch? You'll have to pay $10 a month. However, if you don't feel like paying an arm and a leg a new html5 web app has been put into beta and can be checked out at html5.grooveshark.com
It has limited capabilities (it is a beta) but allows unlimited plays and is legitimately free, for now. 


What apps did I miss? Comment and I'll cover any of your favorite cydia apps.