Super social and incredibly integrated IntelliscreenX takes on quick content and plug-in powerhouse LockInfo in a battle of the jailbreak notification apps

Jailbroken on iOS 5 and wondering whether you should get LockInfo or IntelliscreenX? While both are utilities that aim to give you more control over your iPhone notifications and lockscreen, they do have key differences. Which is better for you?

LockInfo for iOS 5

LockInfo by David Ashman has been a long time favorite of mine when it comes to enhancing lockscreen functionality and gaining more control over native notifications. It still lives up to its reputation under iOS 5. LockInfo is really aimed at folks who’d like to have more control of how notifications behave and how they’re presented. If you don’t want certain information in notification center, you can disable it but still view it on your lockscreen, and vice versa. You can completely customize what appears where and how.

LockInfo also has built-in support for several different messaging applications including BiteSMS, Quickreply for SMS, iRealSMS, and more. Regardless what messaging replacement app you choose, LockInfo probably has you covered.

When it comes to content, LockInfo adds a few nice features that aren’t given to you stock. One of my favorites is access to your favorite contacts directly from notification center and your lockscreen. Tapping a contact allows you to call, FaceTime, or message them. It’s a nice little feature that you wouldn’t think you needed but quickly realize you don’t want to go without.

LockInfo also works in conjunction with many plug-ins. Some are distributed by David Ashman himself while others were created by other 3rd party developers. Given the amount of time LockInfo has been around, there are tons of plug-ins and add-ons for it. Some of the most popular ones include ToDo by Appigo, Twitter, Weather, and RSS.

You’ll find a few built-in themes that you can switch between such as a classic iOS version, the classic LockInfo version, and a few more. Since LockInfo has been around for quite a while many developers have made themes for it as well. Some complete themes will even have a LockInfo theme attached. Yes, it’s that widely accepted in the jailbreak community.

IntelliscreenX for iOS 5

Intelliborn has been around for a long time and has created many apps within the jailbreak community, including the original version of Intelliscreen. While I always preferred LockInfo over the original version, IntelliscreenX has come a long way in terms of functionality. Anyone who is heavy into social media and has to have quick access to Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds will want to look no further than IntelliscreenX.

You can add all these widgets as separate pages and reply or post status updates directly from your notification center or lockscreen. The only down side I’ve seen to this is the accelerated battery drain.

Messages+ also comes built-in to IntelliscreenX as well. While I’ve been a huge fan of BiteSMS for a long time, Messages+ will definitely give Bite a run for its money. I love the tight integration with the default messaging app. There’s nothing to install and very little to configure. It just works how it’s supposed to and adds quick reply support.

Considering Messages+ is typically $7.99 on its own, you get a pretty good deal considering IntelliscreenX is $2 more. So if you’re not keen on paying for LockInfo and Bite or Messages+, IntelliscreenX may be a better value for many people.

LockInfo vs IntelliscreenX — which is better?

Both LockInfo and IntelliscreenX are highly competitive jailbreak apps and which is better can change every time one of them is updated. For now I think IntelliscreenX has an an edge over LockInfo. LockInfo is an amazing utility, but users who are heavily into social networking and Facebook will benefit more from IntelliscreenX and its tight integration with iOS 5.

If you are more concerned with having control over plug-ins and where content is presented, go with LockInfo. But for now, I’m giving my vote to IntelliscreenX.

While I may personally prefer IntelliscreenX, I know there are tons of you out there who probably disagree. Let us know what you use and why! Make sure you also check out all our jailbreak resources below for more reviews, guides, and tips!

• Jailbreak apps, hacks, and themes forum
• Jailbreak and unlock help forums
• Jailbreak guides, how-to’s and news

Jan-Michael Cart, noted for his iOS user interface concept videos, is heading off to work at Apple.

And like that, my time has come — I am now a member of the Apple community. I will still update my website with random small portfolio additions. I will also open up the blog portion of my website to document my day-to-day happenings in Cupertino. Stay tuned!

Several of Cart’s UI videos focused on notification handling, making him the latest in a series of notification-centric designers brought in by Apple, including Rich Dellinger, known as the father of webOS notifications, to Peter Hajas, who developed the Jailbreak MobileNotifier package.

Curiouser and curiouser. Check out a few of Cart’s videos, below.

Source: Jan-Michael Cart via iPhoneinCanada.com

Curious how to setup notifications in iOS 5? With all the various banners and popups, badges and sounds, widgets and lock screen options, it can be a little tricky for first-time users, but worry not — we have you covered! First up, here’s how the new Weather and Stock widgets work!

Stock widget

The Stock widget pulls stock information directly from the native Stocks app in iOS 5. By turning the Stock widget to ‘On’ you’ll see a scrolling ticker displaying your favorite stocks. If you want to change the stocks that are displayed in the Stock widget, just follow these quick steps:

1. Open the Stocks app from the iPhone home screen, or tap the Stock widget in Notification Center.
2. Tap the ‘i’ information button in the lower right-hand corner.
3. Tap the + button in the upper left-hand corner to add a new stock. You can search for stocks by stock ticker or company name.
4. Tap Done to finish.

Now, the stock that you’ve just added to the Stocks app will show up in the scrolling Stock widget within Notification Center!

Weather widget

Apple also included a weather widget that displays current weather information as well as a full five-day forecast. Just swipe to the left or right to reveal the five-day forecast. The weather widget pulls information from Yahoo! Weather locations stored in the native Weather app in iOS 5. In order to add or change weather locations, follow these steps:

1. Open the Weather app from the iPhone home screen, or tap the Weather widget in Notification Center.
2. Tap the ‘i’ information button in the lower right-hand corner.
3. From here, you have the option to either use Local Weather (pulled from location services) or add a location manually. For instructions sake, we’ll add a new location. To add a new location, tap the + button in the upper left-hand corner.
4. Search by City, State or ZIP and input your preferred location.

Now the location you’ve manually setup will be displayed in the Weather widget. If you have more than one location in the Weather app, the Weather widget will only display the 1st location. If you have no manual locations set and have the Local Weather feature on, you’ll only see the temperature relative to your geographic location (make sure you have Location Services turned on!)

There you have it, how to configure your Notification Center widgets. We’ll cover the other elements, like Mail and Messages notifications, Lock Screen info, etc. next time. Meanwhile, if you have any favorite Notification Center tips, let us know in comments!

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Installed iOS 5 and the brand new Reminders app that comes built-in, and wondering how to create one of those fancy new location-based Reminders. Luckily, once you’re inside the Reminders app it’s dead simple to add a task. From there it’s super simple to add a location based reminder.

Note: Location based Reminders only work with Lists in your iCloud Reminders account. Exchange Task List can’t use location based reminders. Make sure you’ve enabled iCloud and iCloud Reminders sync first.

1. First tap into the Reminders app and click the + sign in the upper right hand corner to add a new reminder (or you can simply use an existing reminder and add a location to it).
2. By default the Reminders app just functions as a checklist of sorts with no default reminder time. To change this, tap into the reminder you just created or an already existing reminder.

3. Under the reminder name tap into Remind Me.

4. From there you have two reminder options – On a Day or At a Location. In this instance, you’ll want to toggle At a Location to On.
5. You can choose to have that reminder set for your current location or you can tap in and use any address you’d like.
6. Once that’s done you can choose whether you want the reminder to notify you when you leave or when you arrive at the location you specified in the previous step.
7. Tap Done in the upper right hand corner and you’re good to go!

When you arrive or leave the location you specified, you should receive a push notification.

Now, in my experience location based reminders seem to cause a bit of battery drain considering location services has to check consistently for your position. Keep that in mind and use time based Reminders when you can instead.

Have any other Reminders tips to share? Smart ways you’ve figured out to use it? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Using Tweetbot and wondering how to enable the recently added experimental push notifications? Tapbots just recently opened up tons more slots in the beta program so if you haven’t enabled it, there’s still a good chance you can snag a slot.

The most common question I’ve been getting is how to enable push notifications. Although Tweetbot is a gorgeous Twitter client, the push settings are in a bit of a weird place. Follow along for a quick guide on how to try and activate push in Tweetbot.

1. First launch Tweetbot and click the account icon in the upper left hand corner of your timeline.
2. Then tap Accounts & Settings.

3. You will see a page that lists all your accounts. Tap Settings at the bottom.

4. From the next screen select the username you’d like to try push notifications for.

5. Now select Notifications at the top.

6. Simply turn on the switches for each type of notification you’d like and your’e done!
7. If notifications don’t work for some reason, make sure you have Tweetbot push enabled from your general iPhone settings under Settings and Notifications.

As a side note, Tweetbot push is still experimental and they are only allowing so many users at one time. Most people seem to be getting it to work but if you get an error message, the testing slots could just be filled. Keep trying to turn them on occasionally to see if more testing slots have opened. Hopefully push will be available publicly soon!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Annoyed by Google+’s constant stream of email notifications and wondering where and how to turn them off? It’s amazing how the next generation of social network feels the need to pollute our inboxes with massive amounts of old school email, but not to worry — it’s easy to shut off. We’ll show you how after the break.

Here’s how to de-clutter your inbox from the deluge of Google+ emails.

1. Log into your Google/gmail account.

2. Hit the gear icon at the top right and choose Google+ Settings from the drop down

3. Uncheck everything imaginable (or at least everything you find annoying.)
4. That’s it, you’re done.

If you have any other Google+ tips, or tips for avoiding email “bacon”, let us know!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

For some strange reason, our tip box is now overflowing with 960×640 screenshots (what, no iPad love?) showing a few changes from today’s iOS 5 beta 2 release. Among the more interesting ones:

• Welcome screen now has an info button to give you your UDID number, should you have failed to record it previously (Thanks Apple!)
• The iCloud icon in settings is no longer purple. Long live brush metal cone fill!
• Lock screen notifications get a new, single pop up. You can pull down the full list if you like, and if you get multiple notifications, they start to stack again like they did previously.
• Wi-Fi sync in now working, but you need to be connected to a power source.
• iCloud has bumped Exchange from the top spot in mail account setup, while MobileMe has been condemned to the bottom.

We’ll update as we receive more. Screenshots after the break!

iOS developer @WillFour20 recently discovered that creating widgets for the new Notification Center in iOS 5 is possible, hinting at custom widgets from the jailbreak community down the road.

The way it works is rather simple: you can compile a custom widget by creating a class that implements the BBWeeAppController protocol which allows you to have the widget launch local apps when tapped, manipulate its height, set rotation detection, etc. This can work with stock iOS apps as well as App Store apps, with custom widget bundles being stored in the /System/Library/WeeAppPlugins/ directory.

As a basic example, you could create a custom widget to list recently created notes in a snippet view, and when a note is tapped it will take you directly to the Notes app. In theory, there’s also the possibility of nesting WiFi, 3G, bluetooth and other toggles in the Notification Center (similar to SBSettings).

Apple currently has weather and stock widgets available in the iOS 5 beta but hasn’t mentioned anything about extending a widget API to 3rd party developers, so this is a good sign the jailbreak community may come to the rescue by allowing additional functionality within the Notification Center.

Are you looking forward to custom Notification Center widgets in iOS 5? Let us know what you think in the comments!

[@WillFour20, github]

Apple’s WWDC 2011 main keynote is over and we now have tons of iOS 5 news to digest! We’re getting revamped notifications, iCloud, new mail enhancements, and tons of new developer APIs.

But what does iOS 5 mean for all the jailbreakers out there? With the addition of OTA updates, we can’t be sure just yet. I’m assuming you’ll be prompted to install an update. If you wish to remain jailbroken, perhaps you can just ignore those? No one knows as of yet.

Obviously, if you’d like to keep your jailbreak and/or unlock, you’ll need to stay away from any beta version or release version of iOS 5 until the jailbreak community tells us different. This is even more crucial for unlockers. It’s yet to be seen how they’ll even get updates for iOS yet.

With new notifications coming our way, apps like LockInfo and MobileNotifier may not be worth the jailbreak anymore. As I said previously, with Peter Hajas, creator of MobileNotifier, now at Apple, I can see why. The new notification system in iOS 5 has some striking similarities to his MobileNotifier concept.

Regardless what you jailbreak for, steer clear of iOS 5 if you’d like to keep your jailbreak. If you plan on going stock the minute iOS 5 drops, let us know why in the comments. If you don’t, let us know that too!

It looks as if the Apple Gods have answered some of our notification gripes. iOS 5 will bring with it revamped notifications. It looks as if there’s a reason Apple hired Peter Hajas as it looks a heck of a lot like MobileNotifier. I’ve had revamped notifications in my jailbreak to stock want list for a long while.

Notifications will be accessed by swapping down from the main status bar. You’ll also be able to view them on the lock screen as well. It appears voicemail can be accessed from the lock screen as well.

What do you guys think? Is it what you expected or did you want more? We’ll update as we find out more!

Until then, hit the jump for a few more images!

It’s that time of year again and WWDC 2011 is upon us. We have our iOS want list up and if This Is My Next actually does have a credible source, we may be able to check off quite a few things.

Here’s a list of changes from their source:

• Messaging – The word is that Apple is readying its own MMS / SMS protocol which will be a native part of the phone. We’re not entirely clear on how this would work, but apparently it will be able to automatically identify iOS users and route the message accordingly.

• Notifications – Notifications will now be handled in drop down located at the top of the screen (similar to MobileNotifier, seen in the image above). Messages will appear and then slide back up in a unobtrusive manner, similar to webOS. There have been some leaked screenshots floating around the web for the last 24 hours, but those are not the real deal.

• Widgets – The notifications will be constantly accessible through a pulldown window which you reach by swiping at the top of the screen downward… just like Android. Not only will this screen house your recent notifications, but it will tout proper widgets like weather, stocks, and more.

• Lock Screen – Surprisingly, Apple is making significant changes to the lock screen as well. There will now be notifications shown on this screen with a small icon to the left of each notification — you can drag that icon as you would the unlock slider and you’ll be taken directly to the app itself (similar to TouchWiz for Android). You won’t get weather or stock widgets here, only notifications — and it’s not clear if upcoming calendar events or the like will be represented.

If these changes are going to come in iOS 5, Apple’s competition is going to have to play some major catch up. What do you guys think? Credible source or last minute link bait?

For the full list of changes, hit the link below.

This is My Next

It looks like Apple has recently hired Peter Hajas, lead developer behind the popular iOS jailbreak tweak MobileNotifier, as an “iOS Apps & Frameworks” employee.

Hajas announced his departure from development on MobileNotifier in a blog post ending with a reference to Steve Jobs’ closing remarks at his 2005 Stanford commencement speech saying “stay hungry and stay foolish”. This tipped off iPhone Download Blog who speculated he may be heading to Apple, and sure enough he’s been confirmed as an intern at their Cupertino headquarters.

It’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing any of his work at WWDC 2011 next week, where Apple is set to unveil iOS 5, which is rumored to come with a completely revamped notification system.

We’re guessing any changes to notifications would come from Rich Dellinger, who left Palm and returned to Apple about a year ago. Many know Dellinger as the mastermind behind the slick and unobtrusive WebOS notification system, which has been hailed by many in the smartphone community as the one of the best notifications UI on any current platform.

However, we’re looking forward to seeing what Hajas can do for iOS and congratulate him on getting the job! Now, could this mean Apple is taking a better look at Jailbreak developers these days? Are there any others you think Apple might try to entice over to #TeamPure HQ?

[iDB, Peter Hajas]

Not getting alerted to a new Facebook message or Twitter DM on your iPhone or iPad and wish you were, or getting too many alerts and wishing you knew how to turn them off? Worry not, Apple has built in a system to manage your App Store app notifications and we’ll show you how to turn them on or off, and choose just which kinds of alerts — sound, popup or badge — you want for each one… after the break!

App Store apps can send both push notifications over the internet (so you know when you get a new IM or game challenge) and local notifications on the device so you know when a task is due or a timer goes off. Unfortunately, iOS still handles these in a singular, interruptive way. Hopefully iOS 5 will fix that, but until then Settings will be your best friend.

Notification notification

The first time you launch an app that uses notifications, Apple makes them ask your permission to send them. (See the picture up top.) You can choose to allow it not allow it. But don’t worry if you have second thoughs, or if you make a mistake. It’s easy to change.

How to turn off all app notifications

1. Launch the Settings app
2. Tap on Notifications
3. Toggle the slider on or off, as you so choose

You can even just say no and turn them all off like Rene.

How to selectively enable/disable app notifications

1. Instead of toggling the general on/off slider, scroll down to the app you want to adjust and tap it
2. Toggle the sliders of Sounds, Alerts, and Badges as you wish.

If you toggle them all off, that app will no longer send you notifications. If you don’t mind badges but find sounds or alerts annoying, mix and match to your liking.

Note: Some apps also have push notification settings inside the app as well to give you more granular control of what types of notifications get sent. We’ll do a tip on that in the future.

Have any other tips for handling notifications? Let us know in the comments!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Not a fan of the official Facebook for iPhone app, desperate for an alternative, but still need to get notifications? Join the club. I’ve never been a fan. Their cryptic “bug fix” updates never seem to improve anything and notifications are always so finicky. More often than not, I open my Facebook app to find several notifications that were never pushed to my iPhone. On top of that, the timeline can be choppy or jump randomly. And the whole “liking comments” just seems to decide on its own whether or not it’s going to work that specific day.

If you feel the same way, hit the jump for some workarounds and alternative solutions to using the Facebook for iPhone application.

There’s a few ways you can ditch the Facebook for iPhone application (and still receive notifications). Unfortunately, unlike Twitter there aren’t any real alternative apps. However, these are the two solutions I found to be the best alternatives to using the official iPhone app.

Facebook web app + Boxcar

This is one thing I use as a fall back method when Facebook for iPhone app decides it doesn’t want to push notifications to my device anymore. It works rather well. You can even route the Boxcar notifications to open the mobile site for Facebook. I actually prefer the layout and functionality of the mobile site. I’m not quite sure why Facebook has not just implemented a lot of this into the native app. They recently integrated liking comments but it hardly ever works or shows up. It always works in the mobile web version.

Simply download Boxcar from the app store, create a login and customize your Facebook notifications how you’d like them. And you can have a different sound other than tri-tone which may be a plus for those of you like me that have tons of friends that use tri-tone. I like my sounds to be unique so I know whether or not my iPhone is going off.

Facebook web app + Facebook native app

Another route is to keep the Facebook native app installed but use the web app. If notifications aren’t a huge issue to you and you just want a more steady user experience, simply keep notifications active but use the mobile site instead. I simply turned off badges and hid the app in a folder. That way, I still get notifications for Facebook but I can choose to use the mobile web version instead.

The only downside to this method is if you open a Facebook notification, it will still bring it up in the native Facebook for iPhone app. I simply tap close and then launch the mobile web version. All the notifications will be right at the top of the web version. Not the best workaround but it’s definitely a more stable user experience than the native app in my opinion.

Do any of you have a better way to use Facebook on your iPhone? Let us know in the comments!

Boxcar – Free

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

TechCrunch has word that iOS 5 will include an all-new, completely revamped notification system with widget support to boot.

The other big news for iOS5 — and yes, I’ve completely buried the lede here, thanks for reading! — two things: completely revamped notifications and widgets.

We’ve previously heard that Apple was planning on giving iOS notifications a major face-lift, and Apple did hire the man responsible for webOS‘ elegant notification system, so this really could be the next generation improvement a lot of us have been hoping for.

Throwing cold water on those holding out for new iPhone hardware, however, they once again suggested Apple has no plans of bringing a new iPhone to the party at WWDC.

Apple is pushing for journalists to come to WWDC because the software announcements will be huge (and they likely know that journalists hearing there will be no iPhone 5 announcement may choose to stay home instead this year). And the changes will be vital for all developers in the Apple ecosystem(s) to know about.

In addition, rumors that Nuance technology would be fully baked into iOS 5 doesn’t sound likely according to their sources, but they’re still hearing iCloud will be in full effect at the announcement.

There are plenty of great iOS notification concepts floating around, but we’ll have to wait for WWDC to get a real grasp on the new system and what kind of widget support will be included.

What do you think it could look like?

[TechCrunch]

There are some alleged 7th-generation iPod nano prototypes floating around the internet that show it just might be getting a camera this fall, something the 5th generation had but the current iPod nano lacks. Aside from Apple having to modify the clip so as not to interfere with the camera, is this really something we want?

What I’d much rather see is an alleged prototype floating around that shows a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC or some other type of short-range radio. Because I don’t want my iPod nano to be just another crappy camera (looking at you iPod touch and iPad 2!) — I want it to be a really smart watch.

We’ve been talking about this since the current nano launched and Steve Jobs “joked” that an Apple board member wanted to wear it as a watch. I did too. So did many others. It’s create a whole cottage industry of iPod nano watch band adapters and accessories. But really the current nano isn’t optimized for the job. It’s not finished.

If it had Bluetooth we wouldn’t have to use wired headsets (especially the hateful Apple earbuds). Sure, we’d lose FM radio (the wire serves as the antenna) but we’d also lose a cable running up our arm as well. More than that, we’d gain the ability for a nano watch to interface with our iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

Instead of reaching into my purse or pocket every time I get a text message, event reminder or notification, I could just glance at my iPod nano smart watch, which seamlessly received the transmission and echoed it from my iPhone. And once the connectivity is there, who knows what else Apple — and developers! — could come up with.

One day I fully expect my iPhone and iPad to seamlessly integrate with my entertainment center, my fridge, my car — my entire home and life. Things like Apple TV and AirPlay, and the accessory program started with iOS 3 show bits and pieces of what needs to be a cleaner, more organized, more well rounded solution.

Google is hard at work on this, and HP has shown off notification transfer on webOS, so Apple can’t afford to fall behind. Maybe the iOS 5 preview at WWDC this June will give us some hints?

In this context, an iPod nano smart watch is just another bit or piece in the puzzle, but darn if it isn’t one I want this year!

[Alleged iPod nano 7 with camera via AppleInsider]

Better notifications is probably at or near the top of the feature request list for iOS 5, and Andreas has come up with a concept for how he’d like to see it done — an Apple iOS notifications app!

He’s set up a website and posted a video and… it looks interesting. Like Rene said on last week’s iPad Live, Apple isn’t simply going to add notifications any more than they simply added multitasking to iOS 4. They’re going to look at the actual functionality users want and then figure out a way to provide it, in a traditional way or a new way. (And we’ll either love it or hate it, or often a little bit of both.)

Andreas’ idea isn’t like Boxcar on the App Store or LockInfo on Jailbreak, it’s a bit of a hybrid approach. Check out the video below and let us know if this is the way you’d like to see Apple handle notifications in iOS 5 (and why or why not!)

[iOS Notifications via The Next Web, thanks @KiTTGT]

I just restored as a new iPhone with iOS 4.3.2 and found I was missing a bunch of Settings, including the top level Personal Hotspot, Notifications, and VPN tabs. I use these a lot so needless to say it was disconcerting. After a bit of deduction, I was able to get them back. Follow on after the break to find out how…

Notifications controls which apps can send push notifications. Since I hadn’t enabled any push apps, I installed a Twitter client, it popped up the allow push dialog, I accepted, and the push panel appeared in settings. One down.

VPN and Personal Hotspot are enabled by the carrier file which is downloaded and updated separately (so iPhones can work on different carriers, with the features those carriers choose to allow). In addition to being top level, they’re also typically available under General, Network Settings. The problem was I didn’t have Network Settings either. A reboot fixed that.

Once Network appeared I went in and my iPhone began to detect the carrier file and settings, and then Hotspot enabled and appeared. Toggling VPN on in Network also forced it to appear top level.

And then everything was back to normal.

I hope.

Have you ever lost options in Settings? If so, let me know what if anything got them back for you!

According to a Cult of Mac source, Apple might be buying an App Store app developer in order to improve iOS notifications. This… sounds a little strange. Notifications are certainly one of the weakest remaining elements in iOS, handled better by Android and far more elegantly by webOS. It took Apple until iOS 3 to get copy and paste and iOS 4 to get 3rd party multitasking so my assumption has been notifications were on the list for update but probably not until iOS 5. (Especially after Apple hired back the engineer who developed webOS’ notification system.)

What is there in an iOS 5 notification system Apple can’t build internally? Still, Cult of Mac says:

Our source, who asked to remain anonymous, didn’t know the identity of the company, except it already has an iPhone app in the App Store.

One candidate is Boxcar, a free app from Appremix that enables push notifications for Twitter, Facebook, and email. Boxcar’s system has been highly praised, especially the new iPad version.

Boxcar is fabulous — I use it all the time — but it’s a third party solution, not something designed and integrated into the OS deeply, the way a new notification system would need to be. I just don’t see it…

…unless this is another one of Apple’s famous talent acquisitions — more and better people to work on what will become iOS 5′s new notification system. That I can see.

What do you think?

[Cult of Mac]

I got a chance to look at the brand new version of LockInfo a bit early so I’ve put together my thoughts for you guys to check out while you (im)patiently wait for the public release.

For those of you that don’t know, LockInfo is a great little jailbreak app that makes up for the poor (read: lack of) notification system Apple has left us with under iOS. I wrote a LockInfo setup and walkthrough a while back and now we’re going to look at the newest version of LockInfo by David Ashman.

As you can see from the screenshot above, LockInfo has gotten a pretty big face-lift in 3.0. You now have the option to select different themes within the app. The themes provided are much cleaner than the add-ons in Cydia as well. As of now, you’ve got the option of classic, dark, light, and iOS. All of them look exceptionally good. I also like the fact that you don’t have to respring in order for a theme change to take effect. You do, however, need to exit out of settings.

Besides themes, you’ll now notice that LockInfo has added support for in-line images. When you receive a Facebook notification, the Facebook icon will appear in your notification feed. Same with Twitter, Boxcar, games, and pretty much anything you get notifications for. E-mails and texts also have in-line image support as well. It just makes the entire notification feed look more streamline. Less Windows today screen like and more iOS like. Along with in-line images, you’ll also notice that text will wrap instead of cutting off. Extremely nice for reading a whole text message from the lockscreen. Obviously longer messages or e-mails will cut off at some point, but the preview is significantly longer.

Another new feature is the addition of favorites which aggregates all your favorite contacts from your phone book into LockInfo. I honestly don’t know how I’d live without this feature after using it. To be able to just tap a favorite contact from the lock screen to call or text them is a breath of fresh air. It’ll aggregate all your favorites so all you have to do is swipe left and right in order to page through them, just as you do on your home screen already.

The settings panel hasn’t changed much except for the addition of themes. Everything will be exactly like your used to. It wasn’t a huge transition from the last version. All your current settings and tweaks should still be there when you upgrade so no re-configuring everything.

Overall, LockInfo 3.0 is an amazing improvement to an already great application. It’s obvious David Ashman has put a tremendous amount of work into making this version the best release of LockInfo yet. It’d be wise of Apple to take a look at programs like LockInfo and learn from them. LockInfo brings the iPhone to a whole new level of usability for me and bringing it to mainstream users should be inevitable by now. But if iOS 5 doesn’t bring a new notification system with it, I’ll be perfectly content with LockInfo 3.0.

LockInfo currently runs for $7.99 in Cydia. You can also follow the developer, David Ashman, on Twitter as well at @Stimpy5050.

To all you jailbreakers out there, let us know what you think!

Boxcar for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad received a rather significant update over the weekend, adding Retina Display support and a slew of other great new features:

• Awesome new icons!
• Retina display support
• Centralized inbox
• Google Buzz, Google Voice, Github, App Recommendations, and more!
• More alert settings
• Reply and Retweet right from Boxcar
• Bug fixes

I’ve been using Boxcar for a few months for managing any notifications that come through on my iPhone and iPad, and have enjoyed it immensely. Keeping track of notifications on iOS is a dismal process, and Boxcar corrects that.

With this update, we’re wondering how you’ll be integrating the new features into your usage patterns?

[Free (in-app purchase to remove ads) - iTunes link]

LockInfo is a great app available to jailbreakers that once again fills a functionality gap — this one making up for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad’s poor notification system. Until Apple implements a better solution, David Ashman has done an incredible job supplementing notifications with LockInfo.

Even though LockInfo is an extremely intuitive and powerful app, the setup can be a bit tedious. But when you get it right, you’ll be in notification heaven! Hit the jump for a quick guide and a video with some tips for optimally configuring LockInfo.

*As a side note, LockInfo is $4.99 right now, as of November 7, 2010 – that price will go to $7.99, so if you’ve been contemplating, you may want to jump on the current price. There is also a 14 day trial if you would like to test it out first.

First you’ll need to purchase LockInfo from Cydia. After you’ve done that, you will configure it through your main iPhone settings panel. You’ll see two sections you will use. The general LockInfo settings section and the Activator settings section.

Activator is a universal app that’ll appear on its own once you have an app that supports it. It allows you to customize gestures to activate different apps. For example, I have Activator set to launch Infoshade for LockInfo when I hold down on the status bar. If I slide up from the bottom of my screen, it’ll launch a QuickSend window for iRealSMS. So once you’ve got LockInfo configured, go ahead and set whatever gestures are comfortable for you.

LockInfo also has several plug-ins you can install via Cydia, which most if not all come at no additional cost. Everything from weather widgets, twitter, to do apps, RSS feeds, and more. I typically bypass a lot of plug-ins and here’s why: battery life. The general notification plug-ins is pretty universal. If your apps push themselves, why install a separate plug-in to fetch info and sacrifice precious battery?

As far as Twitter notifications go, I use Boxcar. I also use it for Facebook. This way, I have one app that pushes for two. I’ve set Boxcar to launch my chosen Twitter client and to launch the Facebook app. So if I click any of these notifications from the homescreen, Boxcar will quickly put me right into my chosen client. Whether you use Boxcar, Notifo, or any other push notification app, it should work the same. Notifications will also be instant instead of polling at set intervals, like most plug-ins will require. LockInfo’s default notifications feature will also aggregate IMs from Beejive and any other application that allows notifications, even games like Words With Friends. It’ll simply suppress the default pop-up notifications and present them under the LockInfo notifications tab instead.

Within LockInfo, you’ll be presented with 3 main views for information – lock screen, spring board, and Infoshade. While the first two are pretty easy to understand, Infoshade may not be. I find it best to compare it to an Android-style notification system. You can set a gesture in activator for Infoshade and it will simply drop down whenever you call it from the springboard gesture. So if you hear your e-mail chime in and you don’t want to exit out of what you’re doing, simply use your chosen gesture and Infoshade will drop down and present you with all your information. You can then quickly dismiss e-mails or notifications, or simply delete them. Mail also supports a quick view if you tap on an e-mail. If you’d like to respond, you can click the respond button and it’ll launch your mail app. Or you can trash it from the quick view screen.

However you decide to set up LockInfo is up to you, these are just some helpful hints I’ve learned using it. If you’ve got more, be sure to share them in the comments for in our Jailbreak Forums!  Also, if you’d like to see something in future updates or have a feature request (or need technical help), check out David Ashman’s webpage for LockInfo as well.

Notified for iPhone is a notification app available via Cydia.  It allows users to have more of an Android-style notification system.  I’d been on the hunt for a better notification system for quite a while.  This is one area I feel Apple has sorely neglected, and probably one of my biggest peeves.  Apps like LockInfo and Intelliscreen have stepped in to pick up some of the slack, but in my opinion, Notified does a cleaner job of presenting notifications.

[app site]

When you first install Notified, you’ll see an icon to configure it. You can also create a gesture via Activator whether its a quick swipe up from the bottom of your screen or whatever you choose. This will allow you to access Notified from anywhere. Notified will simply drop down from the top of your screen and show all of your notifications.

Notified requires almost no user setup unless you want to route notifications to open a certain app when selected. There’s also a free plug-in for Notified that adds a status bar along the bottom of your phone when you receive a notification. The only downside to this plug-in is that is runs from the same API pop-up alerts do (from what I can tell). If you disable pop-up alerts, the plug-in won’t work. To me, this is somewhat counterproductive. I don’t need 2 notifications at the same time, for the same thing. I’d like to be able to disable the pop-up alerts in notification settings and just use the unobtrusive notification system that Notified has developed. Hopefully this will come in an update to the plug-in. (Update: Notified also has another newer plug-in that runs across the top bar that’s unobtrusive).

Compared to other jailbreak notification options, the UI looks much cleaner than that of Intelliscreen and LockInfo (and this is always, of course, a matter of personal preference). Priced at $2.99, it’s also cheaper than either of its competitors. It does not however show any information on the lockscreen. This didn’t bother me though. A quick swipe on your lock screen (with whatever gesture you chose in Activator), allows you to see your notifications on the lockscreen as well.

Pros

• Incredibly quick

• Doesn’t eat memory or run unnecessary processes that decrease battery life

• Nice interface

• Monitors battery life as well

Cons

• Plug-in doesn’t really serve a purpose since you can’t disable pop-up alerts (newer bar solves this problem but folks that like the look of the bottom notified bar better may have an issue

• Notification plug-in doesn’t have settings to make alerts disappear after a specific amount of time, they just sit there

We have good news for those of you not taking full advantage of Google Sync on your iOS device and prefer to use the Google Mobile App [iTunes Link - Free]. You will be happy to know that an update has been rolled out that allows for push notifications. You will now receive an icon badge that displays a message saying you’ve got new mail along with calendar event reminders that will appear on your home screen.

So now let us ask, do any of our readers actually prefer to use this application over Google Sync set up via Exchange?

[Google]

Palm has a stellar, non-interuptive, non-”choose it or lose it” notification system, and according to our sibling site PreCentral.net, the man who designed webOS notifications has left for Apple:

The man who “Invented the non-intrusive banner notification system used in webOS” and also did all sorts of other work for the OS, Rich Dellinger, is leaving Palm to return to his earlier employer, Apple, as a Senior User Interface Designer.

Does this mean iOS 4.x or iOS 5 will be getting better notifications? They’ve likely been working on that long before now, and who knows what Dellinger will be assigned to, but since notifications remain one of the few sore sports in iOS, we’re very much hoping it does and the sooner the better.

And let’s top that off by asking what kind of notification system you want to see in iOS? Palm and Android both do it well, how could Apple do it better? Simpler?

Yesterday’s iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event gave us 7 new “tent-pole” features, 1500 new APIs for developers, and once again took Apple’s mobile OS a step closer to feature parity and a step further towards elegant functionality… but we didn’t get everything we wanted. And no matter how hard we tried, we found we didn’t even get everything we needed. In other words, iPhone 4.0 is still missing out in some key areas. Even though we got some good stuff, this is what we didn’t get:

• No new Home Screen/SpringBoard. We understand that Apple has 85,000,000 legacy users now trained on the iPhone Home Screen system (aka the same app launcher metaphor going back to the days of PalmOS). We knew when Apple said as much during the iPad announcements that they weren’t going to confuse that “already trained” customer base. It’s the price of being an established OS, after all. So Apple didn’t radically re-invent the Home Screen. They did make it layered — it can lift up to show you multitasking apps and slit open to show you apps inside folders — but that’s it. And part of “that’s it” means…

• No themes. You get wallpaper and that’s where your customization ends. You still can’t remove built-in apps (though you can hide them in a folder so they take less space). You can’t chance the look of icons. There’s no animated backgrounds to be had. More disappointingly, however…

• No widgets. Want to know the latest weather, Facebook or Twitter updates, or stick a big clock on the screen? There’s an app for all of that, sure, but you have to go into and out of each individual app and the Home Page remains a giant grid of uninformative icons. Android and Nokia have had widgets for a while now, webOS lets you flick between live Cards, and Windows Phone 7 will have live tiles. iPhone… will be waiting on 5.0? More’s the pity too because…

• No new notification system. We got local notifications, so there’s some measure of offline alerts, but they’re trapped in the same single, modal, popup hell that’s existed since iPhone 3.0. (And it’s particularly ludicrous on the iPad!). Again, still, if you get a couple SMS, a few Twitter DMs, a game challenge or two, and calendar reminder, and then an IM, you’ll only ever know that IM existed — everything else is completely and utterly destroyed in terms of notifications, and while some apps will badge with a number for unread items, you have to go find them and that’s “pull”, not “push”. Maybe this is also a 5.0 feature…

A lot of other stuff failed to put in an appearance as well.

• Apps can now embed SMS, but why isn’t that a system-wide, OS level, quick-reply API included in the alerts?
• Calendar still has no week view. iPad calendar rotates to landscape, why can’t iPhone?
• Photos gets Faces and Places, but no MobileMe or other syncing abilities. It’s 2010, isn’t it?
• Weather is still 1.0. Even stocks has been updated. Compared to HTC’s weather, it’s in the dust.
• Settings are still bound to an app. You can’t tap the title bar to quickly toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or any of a half-dozen other useful things.
• Mail gets universal inbox, threaded messages, and fast switching, but still no IMAP IDLE (at least GoogleSync can now be used alongside ActiveSync, but still…)
• Safari still lacks Flash, Java, or any other plugin and likely always will. But it should really have gotten in-page text string search.
• iPad gets orientation lock via a hardware switch where the iPhone’s mute switch is located. How about at least a software gesture?
• What about a universal “back” gesture while we’re at it as well? Tapping the title bar auto-scrolls a list to top, couldn’t swiping from right to left take us back to the previous screen, in every app?

iPhone 4.0 was full of functional goodness, no doubt about it. Perhaps we’ll even see one or two more come WWDC in June (Mobile iChat video?) Even given Apple’s size, there are limitations of time and resources that mean they have to choose what features get done now and what get left for later. You can’t have everything immediately. Did doing multitasking come at the expense of doing notifications this time around? (or did iAd?) Maybe. But that’s for Apple to decide and for us, the users, to take them to task over.

And, oh yeah, there’s still no built in task app (or sync).

Anything else missing from iPhone 4.0 that really ought to have been in there?

Tomorrow at 10am PT, 1pm ET, Steve Jobs puts sneaker to stage and, along with SVP of iPhone software, Scott Forstall, gives us a sneak preview of the highly anticipated iPhone 4.0. No one outside Apple knows exactly what new features and paradigms iPhone 4.0 will offer. However, tradition demands we make our best guesses and ask you to do the same.

This isn’t what we want, mind you. We told Apple what we want back on December 25, 2009: multitasking, better notifications, widgets for the home screen, instant access to important settings, themes, gestures like pervasive pull-down-to-refresh, system-wide “back” implementation, orientation lock, and resolution independence, along with a ton of great reader suggestions in the comments. We’ve also asked for a Finder app, like the Photo but to store document files.

This is what we think we’ll actually get, given the rumors and the direction Apple looks to be going. This is us, TiPb staff and TiPb readers reading the tea leaves…

iPhone 3.2 (aka iPad) features

This is the most obvious, really (and we’ve written about it before). All the little tweaks and enhancements Apple has made to the underlying OS, like adding “replace” to cut, copy, and paste, adding spell check to auto-correct, adding dictionary lookup to text select, etc. Wallpaper for the Home Screen, week view in Calendar and the other, sometimes small but still important, chance to the built-in apps, should be there as well. So should Bluetooth keyboard support. Oh, and iBooks.

Better Mail handling

Steve Jobs himself reportedly responded to an email saying a “universal inbox” was coming. That means, like Mac Mail but unlike current iPhone Mail, users with multiple accounts would have the option of seeing all their new messages in one place and not have to tap into and out of multiple folders every time they wanted to check every new message in every account. (Yes that sentence was crafted to feel as laborious as the current process!). Whether we’ll see more than that — IMAP IDLE, multiple exchange accounts, “synergy”-like messaging integration, etc. is unknown.

Multitasking (of a sort)

We’ve been hearing this for a while now — that Apple will offer some level of multitasking in iPhone 4.0. We’ve even seen it in the shadows. The three use-cases that it could cover are background tasks (listening to streaming internet radio while you browse Safari, keeping navigation running while you check Mail), fast task switching (going from Notes to Contacts and back), and multi-window workflow (dragging data from one application space into another).

While the “Pandora” model could easily be handled by allowing streaming accounts to be entered inside iPod (which already has background access going back to iPhone 1.0), the navigation model won’t be solved unless there’s a more universal background implementation. However, Apple has always put stability and mainstream user friendliness ahead of power-user functionality. A compromise seems most like — full background access for a highly limited number of applications.

Fast task switching was accomplished in large part by the speed of iPhone 3GS. What remains missing is the consistent saving of state by apps on exit (if you leave a twitter client or a race game and then go back it should be at exactly the place you left it), and a more elegant way to quickly move between apps — swiping between two apps 11 screens apart isn’t very Apple. The rumor here is for a Mac OS X-style Exposé implementation where a double-click of the Home Button would cause the current screen to fly out and a grid of active (background) apps to fly in. That sounds much more Apple.

Multi-window drag-and-drop may not be obvious given the small size of the iPhone, but given how Palm’s webOS Cards view presents apps — and how the iPhone Safari Pages view does likewise — is remains a tease. Still, we don’t expect it. Not yet.

New home screen (SpringBoard)

SpringBoard is the internal name of Apple’s Home Screen UI, which right now consists of an 11 page-wide application launcher grid with SpotLight search bolted on to the right. Rumors have persisted since before iPhone 3.0 that Apple has a new SpringBoard experience waiting in the wings. Again, there are several elements that could be at play: better organization, glance-able information, themes.

We’re not wishing here, so no grandiose “Apple will re-invent the metaphor for home screens with some ingenious new approach”. We’re looking at what Apple has already done for clues as to where they’re going. Stacks, then, where groups of similar apps are combined together until a tap expands them into a grid-launcher would be reasonable. Likewise, Dashboard where useful, glance-able information is always just a tap (or swipe) away. Dashboard could even integrate SpotLight, allowing it to replace a singletasker with a multitasker (how fitting). It could function similarly on the Lock Screen, for ultimate glance-ability.

We don’t see themes, however. Though they’d be a boon to users and designers/developers alike, they don’t seem very Apple (beyond the home screen wallpaper already mentioned).

Improved notification handling

We’ve beaten this one to death — if you get a constant stream of SMS, IM, game challenges, or any heavy amount of notifications each new one obliterates the one before meaning all but the most recent functionally never existed and hence never notified you of anything. Both Android and Palm webOS do this more functionally, though developers have complained to us that it may be too complex for the mainstream market Apple is targeting (too much management for mom). Could Apple create a more robust yet still drop-dead-simple notification system for the iPhone? Sure, and given how fast and far push notification has been adopted, we think it’s likely they will.

The simplest solution would be a Notification app (please, no smiley face logo) that listed all new notifications. When you’ve received multiple notifications, the dialog would show the most recent but also inform you of how many others you’ve missed, and an option to “see all” would be presented.

But that would likely make no one happy. This more than multitasking might be the most difficult nut to crack, and may end up being part of that new Home Screen mentioned above. That’s closer to guess work than we’re comfortable with for this post, however, so we’ll just leave it there for now.

iAd platform

“iAd” was rumored to be shown off on April 7, and April 8 is just a day later. Apple’s mobile advertising platform could certainly be part of the iPhone 4.0 SDK feature set unveiled for developers. Gossip says Steve Jobs wants to do for mobile advertising what iTunes did for digital music — make it not suck. We certainly hope so. Punch-the-monkey with push notifications is certainly not the new Home Screen experience we want.

iTunes.com

It’s fairly certain iTunes is moving to the cloud and becoming something akin to iTunes.com. We’d love to see streaming video from Apple, MobileMe “whispersync” to keep our place between iPhone and iPad, and other great, media-centric features. But Apple typically saves those for September to coincide with the new iPod touch and lately, new iTunes releases.

###Mobile iChat

We put this here just for Chad. We still think Mobile iChat (text and audio/video) is coming but not until the 4th generation iPhone is revealed at WWDC 2010. Apple usually holds a few new OS features back to show off the new hardware (like Compass, VoiceControl, etc. last year). Patience, Chad!

MobileMe 2.0

Beyond “whispersync” MobileMe has fallen so far behind Google services, DropBox and others that Apple really has to up its game here. Photo sync, cloud backup, and other features have gone from nice-to-have to must-have. Again, however, that feels more like a WWDC 2010 Phil Schiller announcement to us.

One more thing…?

That’s what we think is most likely to come with iPhone 4.0 tomorrow, but Apple has shown they can always surprise us (who expected the long, long list of previously missing features rattled off at the iPhone 3.0 event?). What are you expecting to see?

Notifications App Review by msbaylor. For more App Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

Notifications [$2.99 - iTunes link] for iPhone does just what the name suggests — hooks into Apple’s push notification framework. I’ve never regularly used an RSS reader, because I would add a lot of feeds, then when I’d open it, I had all these things to read and that little number badge would be in the hundreds staring at me from my springboard. I happen to be one of those people that if there’s a number badge on an app, then it needs to be resolved immediately. So I deleted the app. Resolved, right?!? Not exactly what should be done…

Getting back to the app – The resolution to my issue was using the Notifications app. This allowed me to set up certain RSS feeds to be checked and Push notifications to be sent to me. Notifications doesn’t only do push for RSS, but Twitter, Gmail, and if you know how to code, then these are some bits of code that you can utilize on your website. So the app applies to both beginner & advanced iPhone users.

The app itself is quite simple. The main page consists of all the notifications you have received to date and the settings page, which allows you to check latency, to test sending push notifications to yourself and to show you which services you have enabled.

My main issue with this app was determining how to enter my feeds & Twitter searches so that it would send me the notifications. I ended up doing a Google search for the company and finding a login page (that I first registered for) and logged in to be able to edit my notifications. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t add a button in the settings pane that opens up an IN-APP BROWSER! Mind you, the website is mobile formatted; however, the blanks you type into are not, so it is a bit catty-whompus.

Right now I have about some 30 feeds that Notifications checks for me and one Twitter search. While their website states that the notification come instantly, I noticed that it can take from instantly to 15 minutes before you receive notification. A nice little feature I noticed on the web was the ability to open up a pre-selected iPhone Twitter app when you received a Twitter notification.

Conclusion

Overall, the service is great. If you are looking for a solid RSS application with PUSH, then this is NOT the app for you. If you don’t care much about the app itself & its UI, then you should be just fine purchasing this app. The one main thing I’d really like to see improved is the app itself – to have the capability to marked notifications as read or unread & the ability to sort into categories would be an added bonus.

Pros:

-Unlimited notifications (as many RSS feeds as you want etc.) -Notification response time is very reasonable.

Cons:

-App navigation is horrible -Notifications appear in app all bunched up, no way to mark as read. -Must edit setting in a browser. -No RSS feed search

TiPb Review Rating

Every week a few of us from team TiPb, bloggers and forum crew alike, will bring you our current favorite, funnest, most useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone (or iPod touch) related, they’re fair game.

So who’s on deck this week and what are our picks? Find out after the break!

Chad’s Pick: Reeder

I love Google Reader. The web interface is nice, but I desperately want an app to sync it with. I have found the perfect app; Reeder. Why? It looks great, has the fastest sync there is and the interface is fast and clean. At only $1.99, this app is a steal! [$1.99 - iTunes link]

James’ Pick: iPod

One of the reasons that I purchased my first iPhone is that I have always been looking to converge all of my devices into one. I travel every week for work and carrying around an iPod, a digital camera, a cell phone and a portable DVD player can be a real pain while trying to go through the security line at the airport. With all of my cords, etc. I almost always get stopped and searched. Now while it seems I am picking the iPhone in general, I most use the iPod function. While being stuck on the runway, delayed at O’Hare, or long cross country flights, I need my music to help me get through the flight. If music isn’t what I want to do, I can always catch up on my latest TV shows and movies. [Built-in]

Justin’s Pick: Maps

I know everyone frowns on picking built in apps, but I haven’t tried any new apps worth talking about so my pick is the Map app. In the past few weeks it’s helped me, more than once, navigate new roads after getting fed up with traffic and turning off the highway onto some random street. Plus, I’ve used the traffic feature to avoid some routes in the first place. Besides TweetDeck, Weather, and Facebook it’s probably my most used app. [Built in]

Matt’s Pick: Notifications

I’ve never regularly used an RSS reader, because I would add a lot of feeds, then when I’d open it, I had all these things to read and that little number badge would be in the hundreds staring at me from my springboard. I happen to be one of those people that if there’s a number badge on an app, then it needs to be resolved immediately. So I deleted the app. Resolved, right?!? The resolution to my issue was using the Notifications app. This allowed me to set up certain RSS feeds to be checked and Push notifications to be sent to me. Notifications doesn’t only do push for RSS, but Twitter, Gmail & more, This allows me to pick and choose which RSS articles (or whatever) to view when they pop up instead of putting them off for later. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Leanna’s Pick: Bejeweled 2

PopCap Games sure knows how to feed into my addiction of puzzle games. A few months back they successfully took over my life with Peggle and now I’m addicted to Bejeweled 2, more specifically, Blitz mode. Bejeweled Blitz is a one minute speed version of the classic game that is also available on Facebook. With Facebook Connect, Bejeweled Blitz is now with me everywhere I go! Not only is this game terribly addicting, but it looks and sounds amazing as well. [$2.99 - iTunes link]

Rene’s Pick: Instapaper (Pro/Free)

I learned a while ago that I had time to either read, or write — not both. Luckily, technological advances like RSS and Instapaper have let me squeeze in some honest-for-pleasure reading again, if only newsy/opiniony web matter. Still, with drop-dead simple bookmarklet integration on the desktop (find an article, hit the bookmarklet, it’s saved), and transparent syncing between desktop and dedicated iPhone client, no longer is my day filled with “boy I wish I had time to read that non-iPhone-related post” but rather a single tap on Instapaper and it’s now “boy I hope I have time to read this non-iPhone-related post later!” (I purchased the Pro version to support the developer, but there’s also a free version if you want to try before you support) [$4.99 - iTunes link] or [Free - iTunes link]

Crackberry Kevin’s Pick: BlackBerry Bold 9700

[Er, thanks Kevin. We think. Check it out on CrackBerry.com if you must... - Rene]

Your Pick?

You’re part of team TiPb too, so what’s your pick? What app was your absolute fav last week? Let us — and everyone — know in the comments!

The TV show Lie to Me, a few weeks back (season 2, episode 3 to be exact) decided to take the lies just one step too far — they showed an iPhone where one of the characters could swipe between SMS notifications.

To the trained eye, of course, it was merely screenshots of standard model text dialogs over the Notes app, with swiping no doubt courtesy of the Photo App, and sound effects added in post. (The whole screen, not just the alert dialog, changed on swipe). However, it shows that even TV now has to work around the vexing lack of great notification handling on the iPhone.

Sci-fi aside, it does show one possible approach. If instead of that nasty little box you had to cancel or reply to immediately, or risk losing forever, Apple let you swipe back to see previous notifications, would that be a good solution? Or are we still holding our breath (and turning ever-bluer) waiting or a Palm webOS- or Google Android-level solution?

Crunchgear is reporting that Till Schadde of Equinux has been noticing some weirdness with his AIM app and push notifications. Namely, Schadde has been seeing his AIM messages go to random recipients. He discovered this by being notified that a message he had sent to his iPhone version of AIM was redirected to a random stranger. That stranger then contacted Schaddle to let him know and to supply him with a screen shot of his message.

In the past, TiPb has speculated that there are indeed some issues with hacktivated iPhones. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with “hackivation”, it’s simply a process that tricks an iPhone into believing it has authorized itself with Apple via iTunes and is ready to be used, but is actually activated by other, non-Apple software.

These hacktivated iPhones are not being assigned a unique push ID by Apple the way iTunes activiated iPhones with legit SIMs are. One of our readers, Greg, summed it up best in the comments from our last push notification issue post:

The difference is hacktivation, not jailbreaking. There’s a fair bit of crypto involved in the activation process and the “fixes” so far involve taking certs from other phones. This will only work for so long; eventually people are going to have to be on official carriers and paying official plan rates for Push and YouTube and who knows what they’ll cert off in 3.1 or 4.0?

The Dev Team seem to be working on a fix but it does not appear it will come anytime soon as they’ve avoided even posting a fix on their blog. Instead, they quietly posted a link on their Twitter page to a very beta fix.

All of this is yet another part of the cat and mouse game, but it’s important to try and understand what’s going on: normal iPhone users should have nothing to worry about at this time.

In similar fashion to the patent for a today screen, Apple Insider is reporting Apple’s new filing shows a way of displaying icon-like status indicators on the iPhone’s display even though the phone is locked with the backlight not turned on. Apple seems to be paying attention lately to alerts/notifications and that is great news!

Apple proposes the implementation of a dual backlight system, where a secondary, low-power backlight system would be positioned behind the primary backlight system. The always-on light provided by the secondary backlight system could then be projected through one or more transparent or semitransparent regions of the primary backlight system to reach the display even when the primary backlight is turned off.

The lack of a feature similar to this is one of the current iPhone’s biggest complaints. You leave your iPhone on a table and you walk out of the room for 5 minutes… during that time you get a email or missed call… you get sidetracked and don’t turn your phone on… you never know that a message is waiting for you. No blinking LED, no second audible alerts (unless it’s a SMS message), nothing. That is a major gripe that I hear over and over regarding the iPhone.

So as soon as this is actually a reality, it will give the haters one less reason to complain. It’s just too bad we will all have to wait until a future iPhone to see this feature.

[Via Apple Insider]