Tips & troubleshooting
Updated: September 18, 2008
There's always a new tip coming out to make it easier to use the iPhone. Some are mentioned in the user's manual and some are not. I have gathered these tips from various websites or reader submission.
If you have any you'd like to have added, please let me know at
Taking screenshots of the iPhone's lock screen
First install UIKit Tools, which can be found on Cydia. Log into your iPhone via SSH and the Terminal on your Mac. Enter the command: uishoot You will be given the location of your screenshot in your Terminal window.Quickly rearrange icons on multiple screens
Get tired of dragging a new icon across several screens, and fighting with all the icons in the way, just to put it where you want it? Try this method. If you are jailbroken, you might want to look into a program called Categories, which is available on Cydia.Disabling automatic iPhone backups
Are you sick of long backups every since 2.0 firmware came out? There are options for turning this "feature" off. Read more about it at iPhone Alley.App Store / Cydia conflict
Here's a tip from BigBoss over at Sleepers.net:Sometimes you install something (with Cydia) and find no icon. This appears due to the App Store hogging CPU resources. You may notice there is a spinner next to the carrier icon, and no icon shows up. If this happens to you, try these steps to resolve it:
- Uninstall the item(s) that are not showing up in Cydia
- Reboot the iPhone
- Reinstall the program(s) with Cydia
- Repeat until it works.
Is your Mail application crashing on 2.x?
Here's a tip from BigBoss over at Sleepers.net:"This is generally caused after syncing your backup. This has nothing to do with jailbreaking or not. However, the fix for it is simple and is part of a jailbreak. The issue is that after syncing your backup, your mail folder is owned by root and your mail app running as user mobile does not have permissions to access it. You can fix it in SSH. But I also added a button in BossPrefs to solve it."
Step 1: Jailbreak your device
Step 2: Install BossPrefs from Cydia
Step 3: Tap "More"
Step 4: Tap "Fix User Dir Permissions"
Step 5: Sometimes, not always, you will need to load settings and reenter your mail passwords.
