Tag Archives: jailbreak

Scrobbl for iPhone and iPod Touch–scrobble your plays to last.fm [Jailbroken]

Yes, I know I’m not normally one to go round promoting jailbroken apps for iOS, but this one really is handy  – and until Apple start allowing scrobbles to last.fm I’ll continue to use it!

It’s totally free and will work on any jailbroken device of iOS 3.0 and above. Simply download an app from Cydia called Srobbl and plug in your account settings. It’ll work in the background and doesn’t actually have to be running in multitasking to scrobble.

I wouldn’t be promoting this app but for the fact that iPod touch and iPhone scrobbling hasn’t been working in the official last.fm app for months! However, I do like the fact it scrobbles live – I like to know when I listened to tracks.

It’ll even queue tracks for scrobbling if you aren’t connected to a wi-fi or data network, and then scrobble them later.

Simply set it and forget about it – it does the job nicely!

Why does Apple block multitasking and wallpapers on iPod touch 2G?

First of all, I’m back! Sorry I’ve been away for so long – I really wanted to make the most of the summer break to focus on a few other personal matters. But now summer seems to be rapidly fading into autumn, I’m back in business for the time being! There will be lots to look forward to with GEEK! this autumn – I’m going to be reviewing some cool new tech in the months up to Christmas and chatting about loads of new software!

In the mean time though, I’ll stick to the post at hand. It’s always baffled me as to why Apple decided to block out multitasking and wallpapers on the iPod touch 2G. I’ve been a proud owner of my iPod Touch for nearly 18 months now and was very pleased when Apple announced that they’d finally be supporting it in iOS4 some months back.

But then when Apple said that they wouldn’t support it on 2G, I was quite annoyed. They state that the lack of recent hardware made it difficult for them to implement the new features, but that doesn’t make much sense to me.

When the firmware was eventually cracked, I jailbroke my iPod and, to my surprise, multitasking worked perfectly. You have to close apps from time to time as it does get a bit slow if you leave too many open, but otherwise it works well.

I really don’t get why they wiped out the home screen wallpaper for the 2G iPod touch. What was the problem with that?

Alan Edwardes raised a good point in a blog post he wrote, asking why not just have a slider that could turn the features on or off in the device settings? The iPod Touch 2G can clearly cope with the new features, but it would be useful if you could choose to have them on or off. Some people could find it annoying that you do have to close apps from time to time. Still, why can’t I make that choice myself rather than having to hack my device in order to get the features?

What’s the point in jailbreaking an iPhone/iPod Touch?

It’s a little confusing really. I know that so many people love the advantages of jailbreaking an iPhone or iPod Touch, but I just don’t see them.

I experimentally tried jailbreaking my iPod Touch yesterday (yes, I am totally ashamed of myself – I will shortly be returning to official firmware), and it amazes me that Apple makes it so easy to jailbreak their devices. I mean there’s a simple procedure that takes about 45 seconds and that’s it, the patch is done.

It’s totally different to Sony – PSP users will know that Sony can’t help it but patch out every single hack and crack into the PSP firmware. Apple seem to be taking it very lightly.

It also makes me think what is the point? Yes, you can customize the iPhone/iPod Touch’s themes but it is such a faff – and none of them are particularly brilliant. And yes, you can install some random software, but honestly… I don’t see what is so fantastic about it.

And the amount of times that my iPod Touch has crashed since I jailbroke it. It hardly seems like there’s any point in it at all.

I know I’m often quite an “Apple basher” here on GEEK!, but this is the one thing that I like about Apple. Their firmware always works – it doesn’t crash and it isn’t slow. I can rely on my iPod Touch anytime I need it and I know it will be ready and waiting. I’m quite happy with my official firmware Apple for the long term.