Before the new iPhone 4S was released, it was touted as having longer battery life than any previous Apple smartphone. Several tests confirmed that it was possible to get more than nine hours from a fully-charged battery, but there have also been reports of the phone having a less efficient battery than its predecessors.
Ever since the iPhone 4S first came out, there have been complaints about the battery life. What we’re finding out now is that Apple themselves don’t know what’s causing it either,” writes Tim Worstall for Forbes. “Apple …

When you’re playing a game on your iPhone or trying to focus on the finer details of a picture, it’s always helpful to be able to easily zoom in on your display. With new Cydia tweak ZoomIsBack!, jailbreakers can emulate the iOS 4 mobile operating system’s tap-to-zoom feature in the recently-released iOS 5, which eschews this function in favor of the similar pinch-to-zoom.
“Missing iOS 4?s double tap to zoom feature? If so, ZoomIsBack! is the jailbreak tweak you’ve been needing,” writes Jeff Benjamin in a Thursday review for iDownloadBlog. “As …

Ever since Apple’s new iOS 5 mobile operating system was announced in June, hackers have been working tirelessly to perfect exploits for the OS that allow jailbreakers to use it as they normally would while adding more functionality. However, the latest iOS 5 jailbreaks have an unexpected consequence — when installed, the new iBooks application doesn’t work properly.
While jailbreak developers are attempting a permanent fix for this, there is a temporary solution that allows jailbreakers to use the e-book app.
“The simple process of downloading and reading (Steve Jobs’) biography, is, …

With Apple fans all over the world clamoring for a 4G LTE iPhone, the company is reportedly planning on rolling out such a smartphone in 2012. As iPhone Hacks’ Rounak writes in an article posted Wednesday, the number of 4G-capable mobile networks is expected to almost triple next year, and Apple, not surprisingly, has its eyes on capitalizing on that trend.
“The design compromise that had to be made in 4G phones were evident in the first 4G capable phonein the U.S. — Verizon’s Thunderbolt,” the writer explains. “Apple would …

With a new jailbreak tweak from Ron Melkhior, you can put your shut down, reboot, respring your iPhone or put it into safe mode, all with the touch of a button. PowerIcons adds buttons for each of those functions on your jailbroken device’s springboard.
“While Apple is admittedly adding new features, and tweaking old ones as it goes about its business of bumping the old iOS revision numbers, there are still one or two things that are AWOL,” writes Oliver Haslam for Redmond Pie. “One prime example of a feature that …

The iPhone’s built-in camera has been improved drastically from the time the original model arrived in 2007 to the recently-released iPhone 4S, but as Christopher Breen writes for Macworld Wednesday, the new smartphone’s video recorder isn’t always reliable. Breen says that the camera’s autofocus feature is far from automatic.
“We passed this one around the office… The first time Dan tried it, his iPhone auto-focused perfectly,” Breen writes, answering a reader query about the camera problem. “However, I gave it a go with my iPhone — pointing it outside to focus …

iOS 5’s Notification Center was built as a place for push notifications and weather updates, but with new jailbreak tweak WeeCompose, users can send emails and text messages from inside the new feature. The tweak is the latest in a large influx of add-ons that make Notification Center the place to be in jailbroken iPhone 4Ses.
“Originally designed by Apple to offer a new home for push notifications, email messages and anything else that pops up on-screen, Notification Center is also home to a Stocks and Weather widget as standard. The …

Things aren’t going so well for Sprint in its first two weeks of hosting the iPhone 4S on its network, as customers all over the United States are complaining of slow data speeds. Because of this, the company might see a large number of returns before its early termination fee goes into effect this Friday, October 28.
“iPhone 4S customers on the Sprint network in the US are considering returning their Apple devices before Friday, when Sprint’s early terminatioin fee of up to $350 takes effect, due to the smartphone’s slow …

iOS 5 includes a new dictionary feature that allows users to look up words and phrases from anywhere inside the mobile operating system, and thanks to new jailbreak tweak DictGoogle, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners can perform Google searches if Merriam-Webster doesn’t provide enough information.
“The built in dictionary is probably one of my favorite new features in iOS 5. It’s so incredibly handy, and it can be used across any app at any time,” writes Jeff Benjamin for iDownloadBlog. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could search Google in …

Allowing iPhone 4S users to make calls, set reminders and find nearby locksmiths via state-of-the-art voice-recognition technology, Siri is certainly the iPhone 4S’ most impressive new feature. But how useful will the personal assistant application be once the novelty wears off, when users are tired of asking Siri to marry them?
“I experimented with the previous iPhones’ Voice Control on numerous occasions, giving up each time. I only found it useful for initiating phone calls while on the road,” writes Scott Stein in a comprehensive review of Siri for CNET. “Siri’s …