Tips

UPDATE: How to block calls and text messages with iOS 7.

One of the biggest features lacking on the iPhone is the ability to block incoming calls from specific people. Previously you needed a jailbroken device and an app called iBlacklist to block calls, but soon everyone will be able to stop their exes or bill collectors from contacting them. Developers found a new "Block Contact" option in the recently released iOS 7 beta. The new feature allows you to block phone calls, FaceTime calls and messages from a specific contact listed in your Phone app.

You can easily remove people from your blocked caller list by going to their contact screen via the Phone app. There is a "Unblock this Caller" option at the bottom of each individual contact card that has been blocked. Just tap the "Unblock" button and you will be able to receive calls from that specific person again. This is a great option for on-again, off-again relationships, and a new way to identify and ignore telemarketers.

Tired of pulling your iPhone out of your pocket every time you need to check for new notifications? Sure, you can set your device to vibrate on silent but then your phone will shake every time a new message comes in. There's another way, that's more discreet and allows you to take control of when you check for new messages, without even looking at the iPhone.

The jailbreak tweak PocketNotify has no settings to configure, simply install the package then set PocketNotify to an Activator gesture. This gesture should be a using a physical button, something like Volume Button Down Short Hold. Now whenever you short hold the volume down button, the iPhone will check for new notifications.

Cropping a screen capture on the iPhone normally requires several steps to get the desired image. After all, every time you snap a screenshot by pressing the power and home buttons the entire screen area is captured to the Camera Roll. The jailbreak tweak ScreenshotPlus changes how this works, so you can pre-crop any screen capture before saving.

Once installed, ScreenshotPlus only has one setting to configure. This option toggles whether or not the tweak displays the dimensions in pixels of the cropped screen shot selector box. In order to use ScreenshotPlus, an Activator gesture must be assigned to "screenshot mode". Once configured, enter screenshot mode by performing the selected gesture.

Sometimes iPhone owners need help making a decision. Nowadays with so many purchases happening exclusively with plastic, there aren't always stray coins lying around to flip. What luck, arguably the most advanced, portable personal assistant ever created can now flip a coin for you instead. Tell Siri to flip a coin and she'll do just that, letting you know immediately whether it was virtual heads or tails.

There are some other tricks you can use to get help with random numbers or even play games when you're missing a pair of dice. You guessed it, just tell Siri to roll the dice and she will tell you which side of the six-sided dice are facing up after the roll. Ultimately when you need two random numbers from 1-6 or one number from 2-12 this can be handy (simply add the two for a bigger number). But what if you need a larger random number?

The date picker wheels in iOS may look pretty, but when it comes to setting an alarm in the Clock app they can really slow things down. Scrolling to the correct hour and minute, then picking AM or PM is not the simplest or easiest way to set an alarm. PadClock changes all of this for those with jailbroken devices.

Once installed, the tweak has no options to configure. PadClock does just one thing that will save anyone who frequently uses iPhone alarms a bunch of time. Instead of date picker wheels, when entering the alarm time a numerical keypad is provided. The time is directly entered using the keypad, then the AM, PM or 24 button is selected.