Tips

There are a variety of cosmetic tweaks now available to simulate the look and feel of changes coming to iOS 8. When it comes to the Notification Center, the new firmware will bring a redesign along with many new functions including widgets. The tweak Notific8 brings the look and feel of the iOS 8 Notification Center to jailbroken devices on iOS 7.x.

While widgets and other new functions are not part of the tweak, Notific8 does a decent job of simulating the iOS 8 style for free. Under Settings -> Notific8 there's a toggle to switch the tweak on or off. Other than that, there are no options to configure, and the tweak will not change the native iOS 7.x Notification Center settings.

This past week you may have received a notification from Facebook alerting you that the company is "making ads better and giving you more control". This is part of Facebook's plan to start pushing more targeted ads to your news feed based on your browsing habits. Even though Facebook is allowing users to add and remove certain ads from their news feed, some people do not like the idea of the company tracking their web surfing history.

UPDATE: Facebook has informed us they will "not share browsing history with advertisers and won’t do so even with these new changes. Facebook will include info from website and apps to inform targeting on Facebook. But no information is shared with advertisers."

Here's how to limit targeted ads on your iOS device and Facebook news feed:

On your iPhone navigate to Settings > Privacy > Advertising and tap the "Limit Ad Tracking" slider so it turns green.

On your Mac or PC you can use the standard Digital Advertising Alliance form to opt out of receiving interest-based advertising from participating companies.

UPDATE: Click here for updated instructions on how to hide photos on the iPhone and iPad.

Most of the changes Apple makes to its Photos app revolves around sharing, not hiding, your images from family and friends, but now there is a new "Hide Photo" option in iOS 8. The new photo hiding feature was discovered in the iOS 8 beta by an iDownloadblog reader.

To hide a photo in your photos app, simply tap and hold the thumbnail of the image you want to hide then tap "Hide" and "Hide Photo" to confirm. The photo will now be hidden from Moments, Collections and Years but still available in Albums. This is not very helpful if you want to keep really personal photos hidden from people thumbing through your Photos app, but I guess it is a start. There is also a slight chance that the feature could be tweaked by Apple before the final version of iOS 8 is released to the public.

Quickly opening the camera app can be the difference between snapping a great iPhone shot and losing that moment forever. The camera shortcut on the lock screen helps when the device is locked, however jumping to the camera when using other apps takes time. The jailbreak tweak quickCam eliminates this problem by making the camera available from anywhere.

Once installed, there are no settings to configure. QuickCam works by adding an Activator option that opens quickCam. Just about any gesture can be set to open quickCam from anywhere. For example, quickCam can be invoked from within an app by swiping on the status bar.

Finding unique ways to unlock the iPhone with jailbreak tweaks is all the rage. SmartTap brings a completely new way to access iOS while simultaneously draining battery power. By keeping the iOS digitizer activated while the display is dark, SmartTap can react to gestures or tapping even while the device appears to be asleep.

The best part about SmartTap is that everything is customizable, so users can decide what kind of tradeoffs they are willing to make to save battery power or enjoy expanded functionality thanks to the tweak. SmartTap makes it possible to double tap, swipe up or swipe down to either unlock the device, turn on the display, or launch an application.