Make It Ra1n – The Best Apps for a Jailbroken iPhone

Having only recently acquired an iPhone, I wasn’t too familiar with the whole concept of ‘jailbreaking’, except for passing mentions. Phrases pertaining to such things as ‘full potential’ and ‘awesomesauce’ were often thrown around. So when Geohot’s new jailbreak exploit was released, entitled ‘Blackra1n’, for 3.1.x version iPhones, I decided to give it a go. It’s available from Blackra1n.com for both Windows and Macs. Some people have reported some problems and failed starts, but for myself, everything was done in less than a minute. I literally plugged my iPhone in, ran the app, hit ‘Make it Ra1n’ and after a phone reboot or two my phone was set free from its incarceration.

Once jailbroken, you’ll have a Darkra1n app on your iPhone, run that and install Cydia and you’re one step closer to having a plethora of awesome Jailbreak Apps on your iPhone. Cydia is effectively the Appstore for Jailbroken Apps.

Because lists are seemingly the cornerstone of blog posts, my must have apps to get you started are after the break.

SBSettings

This gives you access to a number of useful toggles for oft needed settings, such as WiFi, 3G, and Bluetooth. You can download more widgets for SBSettings through Cydia. Combine it with Rotation Inhibitor and you can turn off the rotation. Invaluable for those of us who like to use their iPhone whilst in bed, and find themselves constantly wrestling with the constant screen rotations. SBSettings also offers a Task Manager style Processes list, showing running apps and available memory. From here you can close apps if ever you find your phone running rather sluggishly. To access SBSettings, just swipe horizontally or vertically down from the Status Bar and up it pops. Handy.

Customisation

Winterboard allows you to have custom themes and icons for that customised touch. Combine it with Five Icon Dock and Five-Column Springboard and you can have your springboard looking like this:

Which is useful if you have a lot of apps and don’t like having to change screens constantly. If that’s not enough, install Categories which will allow you to create folders for your apps. Here I’ve put all my jailbreak related applications into a separate folder.

Backgrounder

For those of us who like to multitask, Backgrounder allows you to effectively minimise applications, so that they can keep running in the background. You can use it for radio apps, so you can still listen whilst running another application. You can either have an app set to automatically minimise, or you can tell an app to do it by holding the Home button. Doing this to a minimised app will also close it. You’ll get a badge on your Springboard on apps that are currently minimised.

3G Unrestrictor

Now, unfortunately this one isn’t free, and is rather a paid-app on the Cydia store. As of writing it’ll set you back $2.99. What this does is it tricks applications into thinking you’re on a WiFi connection when you’re not. Why is this useful? For a start it can get rid of that annoying popup telling you to connect to a WiFi network to download anything over 10MB. If i’m on a strong 3G connection I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to download 10MB+ files. Gone are those days. I’ve set the iTunes and App Stores to be unrestricted, so I can download to my heart’s content whilst on the move. Unrestrict the YouTube app and you’ll be able to watch high quality video whilst on 3G, instead of the horribly downsampled versions you usually get.

Unfortunately, BBC iPlayer, much to my chagrin, cannot be circumvented. Apparently they use some other method to detect that you’re on a mobile connection, so you still won’t be able to watch iPlayer on 3G. The developers are working on a possible fix, but don’t hold your breath. 3G Unrestrictor does work with Skype though, so VOIP calls are now at your beck and call (geddit) whilst on 3G. Testing it out, call quality was excellent.

In conclusion, Jailbreaking has truly opened up the potential of the iPhone platform. A large number of these applications would never pass through Apple’s verification process, so jailbreaking is the only way to get access to them. With the Darkra1n release it’s also never been easier.