How To Remove Electra iOS 11 Jailbreak From Your iPhone Or iPad

Jailbreaking is all the rage again right now, thanks in part to new jailbreaks being released for some of the most recent versions of iOS. This means that there will likely be plenty of new jailbreakers out there and in turn, likely a few who decided that jailbreaking simply was not for them.

Whether the reasons for this are a lack of stability, and potentially, performance, or something else entirely, removing a jailbreak from an iPhone can be a hair-raising experience.

However, while potentially stressful, it does not have to a complicated process. If you’re jailbroken on iOS 11-11.1.2 using Electra and want to reverse the process, here’s how you go about doing exactly that. Before we get started, we’re assuming you are using a Windows machine here, but if you’re using a Mac, then the process is identical, although you will need to use Mac versions of the apps mentioned and potentially be a little more familiar with Terminal and SSH. We’re sure you’ll be fine! Assuming you are using Windows, of course, you’re going to need to download a couple of things before getting started:

• Cyberduck or a similar FTP app
• Delectra script
• PuTTY

Okay, let’s get into the fun stuff!

Note: Before you begin, as suggested by the author of the uninstaller script, remove all tweaks and jailbreak apps on your device first using Cydia. If you futurerestored to your current firmware, do not use this method. Also note that although several jailbreakers have confirmed that the script works, the developer does not guarantee a successful unjailbreak, so if you’re not one to take risks, simply wait for the tried and tested SemiRestore by CoolStar to be updated for this.

Step 1: Open Cyberduck and establish a new connection to your iOS device by clicking the Open connection button.

Step 2: Select SFTP as the connection type and enter the IP address of the device you are trying to unjailbreak. This can be found in the Wi-Fi portion of the Settings app on your device.

Step 3: Enter the username “root” and the password “alpine” unless you changed the password at some point.

Step 4: Click Connect, followed by Allow.

Step 5: Drag the unjailbreak.sh script into the Cyberduck window and allow the file transfer. Once complete, you’re done with Cyberduck.

Step 6: Now, fire up PuTTY and enter the IP address of your iOS device in the Host Name field, making sure SSH is selected as the connection type. Click Open and click Yes on any popups.

Step 7: You’ll now be presented with an SSH terminal, connected to your iOS device. All you need to do now is run the unjailbreak script.

Step 8: In the PuTTY window, type “bash ./unjailbreak.sh” and hit Enter. This will start the script.

Step 9: Follow the instructions in the window, which amount to pressing Enter. You’ll need to enter your PIN on your iOS device at least once through this process, too.

Step 10: Once your iOS device has restarted, you should be jailbreak-free. Delete the Electra app and you’re all done!

See, we told you it wasn’t “that” complicated, didn’t we?

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KGI: Apple to release more affordable 13-inch MacBook Air in Q2, HomePod demand ‘mediocre’ so far

Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities is today out with a pair of new investor notes on Apple. The analyst offers new supply chain details on the new iPhones coming this year, AirPods demand, and more. Kuo also says Apple is planning a more affordable 13-inch MacBook Air for this year…

Kuo says that he expects Apple to release a new MacBook Air “with a lower price tag” during the second quarter of 2018, meaning we should see it sooner rather than later. The analyst expects that the more affordable MacBook Air will help push MacBook shipments up by 10-15 percent this year.

Details on the new MacBook Air are sparse, but this report from KGI corroborates a similarly vague report from Digitimes earlier this year. The MacBook Air line has been largely stagnate in recent years as Apple has shifted focus towards the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Currently, Apple sells the 13-inch MacBook Air starting at $999, and KGI seems to think it will get even cheaper this year. Despite its neglect by Apple, the MacBook Air remains a popular choice for college students.

The investor notes also offers some additional details on supply chain reactions to the upcoming iPhone refreshes, the growing success of AirPods and more. Kuo says that KGI is “positive” on shipments of AirPods and predicts the refreshed model will come in the second half of the year, driving strong year over year growth.

As for the new iPhones coming this year, Kuo primarily focuses on the entry-level 6.1-inch model, saying it will make for a strong year for suppliers such as Unimicron, as well as Apple partners Wistron and Pegatron.

Kuo also notes that demand for HomePod has been “mediocre” thus far. Overall, the analyst says he holds a “neutral” view of demand for the smart speaker based on “shipping time.” Kuo doesn’t offer any additional info on HomePod shipments or supply chain chatter.

What do you make of Kuo’s latest report? Would you be interested in a more affordable 13-inch MacBook Air? Let us know down in the comments.

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Front-door tech is hot, and it’s not just Amazon who wants in

Most of us tend to think people trying to open the door when we’re away want to steal stuff. Amazon.com would like to change that assumption.

The e-commerce giant shelled out a reported $1.1 billion this week to acquire Ring, a developer of Wi-Fi-connected door bells. The move follows the rollout last year of Amazon Key, a smart lock and camera system for in-home deliveries to customers who don’t want packages sitting outside.

But Amazon’s not the only one placing high value on front-door tech. In the age of on-demand delivery, service providers have long seen the typical low-tech door as an impediment to expansion. Smart-lock developers and home security companies also have been putting resources into the space, alongside a number of venture investors.

As we reported a few months ago in an overview of smart-lock and building access investments, the way people open the front door hasn’t changed much in a century. Most of us still get in by turning a flat metal key into a lock. Visitors ring old-fashioned door bells. And there’s commonly no digital record of who came or why.

There’s a lot of money going into changing that status quo. Since last year, venture investors have poured more than $200 million into an assortment of companies with businesses and technologies tied to keys, locks and building access. To date, those companies have more than $500 million, according to an analysis of Crunchbase funding data.

Ring, which raised $200 million in venture funding, is one of two heavily funded companies to be acquired in recent months. In October, August Home, a smart-lock developer that had raised more than $70 million in venture funding, sold to ASSA ABLOY Group, the largest global supplier of door opening products, for an undisclosed sum.

There’s good reason to think the up cycle for smart locks and entry systems has further to go. For one, to a large degree, lock and building access-related investments are an extension of the connected home space, and growing adoption of connected home systems provides a major entry point for key and door tech.

Many legitimate businesses also want an easier way to get through the door. After all, delivering things to customers’ doors, either inside or out, constitutes an industry with a collective valuation in the trillions of dollars. Amazon.com alone is valued at more than $700 billion.

Additionally, anecdotally, it does appear urban humans over recent decades are trending toward greater laziness. Increasingly, people want their laundry, meal kits, produce, shaving supplies and pet treats delivered to their doors. Just as we used to think of going to the store as a pain, we will soon consider stepping outside to pick up a package as the height of inconvenience.

Those trends might not be great for the state of humanity. But they are bullish indicators for the smart lock industry.

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Can you really trust app store ratings? We asked the experts

As smartphones have soared in popularity, app development has exploded. There are currently more than 3.5 million Android apps and games in Google’s Play Store, and more than 2 million apps and games in Apple’s App Store, according to App Annie. With such a feast of choice, people need a little help separating the wheat from the chaff.

App stores offer a review rating system for precisely this purpose. After you download and install an app, you can rate it out of five stars and write up a review detailing your thoughts. Review scores are aggregated and used to determine an overall score for the app. The higher the score an app gets, the more people liked it, at least in theory. In practice, a lot of reviews are less than useful for prospective installers and there’s a thriving trade in fake reviews. One star, one-line reviews complaining that an app didn’t work on this or that device, or that there was some billing issue, aren’t always a good indication of whether the app will meet your needs. But what about multiple five-star ratings with repetitive, unnatural-sounding reviews?

Gaming the system

Good review scores are vital if you want a coveted place in the app store charts. They boost your chances of appearing on curated lists and recommendations, and the bottom line is they can persuade people to install your app. Little wonder then, that some developers are willing to bend, or even break, app store rules to get closer to five stars.

The fact that many developers game the system has been an open secret in the industry for years. A brief web search for “paid app reviews” or similar terms reveals several services selling app reviews and installations to artificially boost the standing of apps in the main app stores. While a small number of app reviews might cost $2 to $3 each, developers buying in bulk can secure discounts, with reviews costing below a mere 50 cents.

There’s no gray area here – this practice violates the Google Play Developer Program Policies and Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines. It can result in the removal of suspect reviews, the removal of the app, or even the expulsion of the developer from the program.

“Both Apple and Google have demonstrated they take the issue extremely seriously, and they continuously monitor reviews left on their respective stores,” Barnes said.

The problem is that determining what constitutes a fake review is easier said than done. Many of these services employ real users who download and install the apps and then post glowing reviews. While developers used to buy reviews in big chunks and post suspiciously similar write ups, things have gotten more sophisticated.

You can now dictate the wording of reviews, decide on post frequency, and stir in some four-star reviews alongside the five-star reviews to make it look more natural. Some of these paid app review services also guarantee they will replace any reviews that are deleted.

We want ratings and reviews to be authentic and a true reflection of comments from the users,” Andrew Ahn, product manager at Google Play, told Digital Trends. “Spammy reviews, such as off-topic comments, solicitation, content with profanity, are just some of the categories we filter out. We also prohibit fake or incentivized reviews.”

Interestingly, the practice of buying reviews isn’t just about securing positive feedback for your own app -- it can also be used to knock the competition down.

“There are two types of issues with incentivized reviews,” Ahn said. “One is buying good reviews to better promote your own app, and the other is buying negative reviews to harm competing apps. We cover both cases to keep the ecosystem clean and fair.”

Meteoric success, like what happened with the game Flappy Bird, immediately raises questions, as does a sudden drop in ratings, like with CNN’s iOS app.

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After Just 6 Months, the Phone Notch Is Already Deeply Uncool

When Essential debuted the first-ever notched display on the PH-1, it was a bold, divisive statement about smartphone design. Then Apple put one on the iPhone X, and while some people still didn’t get it, the sentiment around the notch shifted from confusion to curious appreciation, or even adoration. But now, after going to Mobile World Congress and seeing pretty much every other smartphone maker adopt the notch, the feature has almost entirely lost its cool.

And I’m not just talking about some no name knock-offs either. On the Zenfone 5, not only did Asus rip off the iPhone X’s notch, the company blatantly copied the rest of the X’s design too. Then there’s the R15made by Oppo, the fifth largest smartphone maker in the world. Even LG reportedly showed off a notched G7 behind closed doors, and that’s before we talk about all the other notched Euro and Asian smartphones we don’t pay attention to here in the US. And with rumors that Huawei and OnePlus are adding notches to their next handsets, pretty soon it’s going to be only Pixels, Galaxys and maybe a Moto that still have unblemished rectangular displays.

So the whole world has gone notch crazy. Sweet. Now there’s a couple reactions you can have. One is to get angry about it, which is fine, but instead, why not try to look one level deeper and figure out what’s causing this change? With the recent trend of smartphones opting for full-view or extra-wide or whatever you want to call it displays and cutting down on bezels, the notch was really an inevitable evolution.

You can’t really get rid of a phone’s front-facing cam without whipping up the hoard of selfie-snapping fanatics into a frothy social media-powered complaint storm. But you can try to recover the space on either side of a phone’s front sensors, which is precisely the line of thought that gave us notches in the first place. And while the Zefone 5’s notch is quite uninspired, you got to give Asus a little credit for delivering a handset with a screen-to-body ratio of 90 percent, which is better than both the iPhone X (82.9) and the Galaxy S9 (83.6 percent).

When you realize this, suddenly it seems kind of silly to get worked up about Android phone makers copying the iPhone X’s notch. The notch wasn’t even the iPhone X’s to claim in the first place. Additionally, conflating the inclusion a notch with phone makers copying Apple seems a bit flawed.

The iPhone X is much more than a handset with a screen that has a crooked side. That notch is hiding some pretty impressive facial recognition tech, that try as they might, has to be replicated on any Android phone. 

The iPhone X also has a build quality that is largely unmatched outside of a select few Android phone makers, and its homegrown processor still blows Qualcomm’s chips out of the water when it comes to pure speed. Yes, the Zenfone 5 is an iPhone X clone, but that’s because it copied Apple’s entire playbook. Most other smartphones makers are simply chasing the easiest path to bigger, more immersive displays.

So now back to the issue of coolness. When you think about it, the notch is really a utilitarian compromise, and as everyone knows, utility is the opposite of style. Consider the good ‘ole utilikilt. (Please click that link if you want a good laugh.) Its open bottom gives you plenty of mobility, and its rugged cotton-poly blend and metal grommets are surely quite durable. But is it cool? Hell no.

Or what about the suburb’s favorite people mover, the minivan. It’s by far the best way to shuttle a gaggle of rambunctious children to a soccer game or ferry a pack of labradoodles to the vet. But there’s a reason why when people have mid-life crises, they opt for a sleek two-seater rather than a wood-paneled Caravan.

No, if smartphone makers were going for cool, they would have tried harder. Maybe if they ask real nice, Vivo might give them some tips. So until someone figures out something better, notches are going to be a standard feature from here on out. And that’s really the issue at heart, because not long after Essential and Apple made notches neat, everyone else hopped on the bandwagon and ruined it. After all, there are few things worse than running into someone and realizing you are wearing the same clothes. What a bummer.

by: Sam Rutherford

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Skype now supports Android devices running 4.0.3 and up

In a blog post today, Microsoft announced a new version of Skype is being released with optimizations for devices running Android 4.0.3 to 5.1. The updated app hasn't started rolling out yet - that'll happen in the next few days, the company says.

Microsoft explains the new Skype app is "is lighter on both disk and memory consumption, allowing for greater speed and better audio and video quality on lower end Android devices, as well as increased performance in challenging network conditions".

The new app will be made available to users around the world.

Source

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Check out Samsung's Oscar ad for the Galaxy S9

While the Super Bowl remains the most watched television program in the U.S. year after year, the Academy Awards (aka Oscars) are also considered must see TV. Tomorrow night, the Oscars will be presented to the Hollywood elite just one year removed from last year's faux pas that saw the wrong film first awarded Best Picture (LaLa Land) before the real winner (Moonlight) was announced. Ironically, that big mistake will probably increase viewership of Sunday night's show as those watching live hope to catch another momentous screw up.

With millions of eyeballs watching the show, the Academy Awards telecast is a must buy for for big name tech firm's media buyers. Earlier today, we showed you Google Nest's Oscar ad for its surveillance webcam/doorbell that also included a not very subtle message to the men of the world. Now, we can show you the Oscar ad that Samsung will have in rotation for the just introduced Samsung Galaxy S9.


Sammy's commercial continues the use of the tag line "Do What You Can't," and is about making something, anything, that you can call your own. Starring some who have made it in the industry both in front and in back of the camera, the ad's best advice includes:

• "Make mistakes until you don't."
• "Make them regret the day they passed on you."
• "Make something undeniably you."

Now here is some good advice from us. Check out the ad by clicking on the video at the top of this story.

source: Samsung

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