Having a backup of your iOS device and its settings is important, so rather than completely disabling iOS backups in iTunes, you can choose to selectively disable only the automatic backup process. This is a much better solution because it allows you to create and retain local backups of an iPad, iPhone, or iPod when you want them, but they are no longer initiated on their own during the sync process.

The vast majority of users should retain the default behavior and allow iTunes to manage and back up your devices. This tip is intended for advanced users who have a compelling reason to disable the automated process.

Disable Automatic iTunes Backups

1. Quit iTunes and then launch Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities/
2. Enter the following defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes AutomaticDeviceBackupsDisabled -bool true

3. Relaunch iTunes for changes to take effect

Once automatic back ups are disabled, you can backup manually at any point by right-clicking on the device within iTunes sidebar and choosing “Back Up”, and you can continue to use iClouds manual initiation as well.

Re-Enable Automatic iOS Device Backups in iTunes
To reverse the change and re-enable automatic device backups, open Terminal and use the following defaults command before relaunching iTunes:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes AutomaticDeviceBackupsDisabled -bool false

Both sides of this change should only impact iTunes and have no effect on iCloud behavior.

A big thanks to Matt for the tip left in our comments!

We’ve all had the experience of one of our favorite app getting updated and the new version being worse than the previous version. Maybe it’s more intrusive ads, maybe it’s a terribly annoying feature, whatever it is, a poor app update can easily ruin your app experience. The easiest way to avoid this potential letdown is to save a copy of iOS apps, allowing you to downgrade them if you discover the new version is worse. This is much easier to do than you may think, we’ll cover the process of saving a local backup of the app and also how to downgrade to the prior version if you dislike the newest iteration.

Note that if you backup exclusively through iCloud you won’t have this option because the apps will not be stored locally. You can always backup locally in addition to iCloud to prevent that being an issue.

Save iOS Apps & Easy Version Downgrading

This process is best done manually before you update an app.

Saving & Backing Up Individual iOS Apps

1. Navigate to the iOS app location, this can be done by right-clicking the app in iTunes and choosing “Show in Finder” or by manually going to the local iOS app location at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications/ and finding the app
2. Copy the app file to another location to serve as the backup, the iOS app files have a .ipa extension

If you feel like it, you could backup that entire directory to another location, though that’s usually unnecessary.

Sidenote for Windows users: the directory you are looking for is: C:\Users\Username\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications\

With the app backed up, you can now safely update to the newest version directly on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. If you decide the new version is awful, downgrading is very simple.

Downgrading to Previous Version of an iOS App

1. On the iOS device, delete the app you wish to downgrade
2. On the computer, quit iTunes
3. Again navigate to the local iOS app location at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications/
4. Remove the newest version of the app .ipa file from that directory
5. Copy the previously saved version of the app to the /Mobile Applications/ directory
6. Relaunch iTunes
7. Resync the iPhone, iPad, or iPod, and the older app version will restore to the device to complete the downgrade

In some situations the older versions of apps won’t be compatible with the newest version of iOS, you’ll know this is the case because the app won’t launch when you attempt to open it on the iPhone/iPad, or you will get a message stating a new version is available and asking to upgrade.

Finally, if you use something like Time Machine, you can always dig through the Time Machine backups to access older versions of apps if you’re in a pinch, but it’s generally easiest to just keep a specific backup of an app if you prefer a past version.

Anytime an iOS device is connected to a computer it will sync and backup the device, and though the syncing process can be annoying sometimes, the backup process should be considered crucial so that you always have a way to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod should anything go wrong.

With that said, there are a few limited situations where some users may want to disable the iTunes & iOS backup process completely, which is different than stopping iTunes from automatically syncing because it continues to allow for device syncing but minus the backing up aspect.

We’ll show you how to turn off backups, but we want to warn everyone this is not a good idea unless you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, leaving this option best for select jailbreakers or just for demonstration purposes.

Disable iTunes Backups for iOS Devices

• Quit out of iTunes and launch the Terminal, then enter the following defaults write command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled -bool YES

• Relaunch iTunes, connecting iOS devices will sync but without a backup copying over

With backups disabled nothing will be added to the local directory or iCloud, and anything already there can be deleted through iTunes or manually. Remember, disabling this feature removes the ability to restore an iOS device should you need to, which for 99.9% of people is a bad thing.

Re-Enable iTunes & iOS Backups

• Quit iTunes again and launch Terminal, entering the following defaults command:

defaults delete com.apple.iTunes DeviceBackupsDisabled

• Relaunch iTunes and connect an iOS device to confirm backups are working again

The instructions above are intended for Mac OS X, but Windows users can disable the device backups by launching iTunes with a flag attached to it, this can be executed from the Run menu or by right-clicking iTunes:

"%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt DeviceBackupsDisabled 1

To reenable backups with windows, change the 1 to a 0 and run iTunes exe again.

Thanks to Jeremy for the tips.

By using a custom URL inside of an anchor tag, you can place a link on any website that will initiate a new iMessage conversation. Anyone clicking the link will then launch the Messages app in iOS or iMessages in Mac OS X to begin a new conversation with the specified Apple ID. Even if you have limited knowledge of HTML the link structure is easy to use:

Mac OS X: imessage://your@appleid.com

<a href="imessage://your@appleid.com">Send iMessage to a Mac</a>

iOS: sms://your@appleid.com

<a href="sms://your@appleid.com">Send iMessage to iOS</a>

Replace “your@appleid.com” with your own Apple ID that is configured to use with iMessage. Note that the iOS link uses “sms” as the identifier, meaning some users may send you an actual text message rather than iMessage if they are not set up to use Apple’s messaging protocol.

Because iOS and OS X use different URL schemes, you’ll need to use two different links by default. This could have advantages, if you only wanted people from iOS to reach you for example, but if you don’t like that idea there’s a nice workaround to the dual links by using the short PHP script offered by Beuagil.es. This script will detect the user agent and determine which link to use based on that, effectively combining the two iMessage links into one intelligent link:

<a href="<?php
$useragent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
if(preg_match('/Macintosh/',$useragent)) $os = 'imessage';
elseif(preg_match('/iPhone/',$useragent)) $os = 'sms';
else $os = 'sms';
echo $os;
?>:your@appleid.com">Send an iMessage</a>

Obviously you’ll need a PHP capable website for the above script to work, otherwise you’ll have to use the HTML snippets offered at the top of the post.

You can also use similar URLs to initiate FaceTime calls from the web.

Saving pictures from websites or emails on to the iPad or iPhone is very easy once you learn how. This may be a bit of a beginners tip, but after fielding the question multiple times from relatives and even seeing it popup in comments on wallpaper posts, there are clearly a fair amount of people who aren’t aware of how simple the process is.

Saving Images from the Web with Safari

1. From Safari, navigate to the website with an image you want to save
2. Tap and hold on the image until the pop-up selection menu appears, then tap “Save Image”
3. Find the saved image within Photos app

Saving photos from Mail is basically the same, but has the added bonus of allowing you to save a group of pictures that were sent via email as attachments.

Save Images from Mail Attachments on the iPad or iPhone

1. From Mail app, open the email containing the images
2. Tap and hold on an image and select “Save Image” from the pop-up menu, or if there are multiple images and you want to save them all, tap “Save # Images”
3. Exit out of Mail and launch Photos app to find the saved images

Once the pictures have been saved to Photos you can perform basic photo editing on them using the built-in tools, which allow for things like rotate, red eye reduction, and cropping.

Be aware that having pictures stored locally will count against the free iCloud backup capacity and will be listed under “Camera Roll”, unless specified otherwise in iCloud backup settings.

iTunes carrier testing mode allows you to manually load signed .ipcc carrier files onto an iPhone or cellular iPad, these .ipcc files contain various carrier settings pertaining to voice mail, MMS and SMS, Personal Hotspot, APN settings, and other network-specific preferences. If you’ve used an iPhone on T-Mobile or even as a prepaid phone you may have experience with these files, but other than making network configuration easy they can also be used to forcibly enable features that are otherwise disabled by default, like Personal Hotspot on certain international iPad 4G devices. We’ll cover how to enable carrier testing mode, how to find ipcc files, and then how to use those IPCC files with either an iPhone or iPad with a cellular connection.

Enabling Carrier Testing Mode in iTunes

The process to enable carrier testing is a bit different for Mac OS X and Windows.

Mac OS X:

1. Quit out of iTunes
2. Launch Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/
3. Enter the following command at the prompt and then hit return:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool YES

4. Relaunch iTunes

Windows:
If you happen to use an iOS device with Windows, iTunes carrier testing mode is enabled by launching iTunes as an exe with a flag attached to it:

%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe" /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

Finding & Downloading .ipcc Files
All signed ipcc carrier settings files are stored in an xml file on apple.com, you can access that gigantic list here:

http://iphonediags.apple.com/version.xml

Find the carrier file you want to use and then copy the URL and paste it into your browser address bar to download it directly from Apple. Save that file somewhere that it is easy to find for using with iTunes.

Loading .ipcc Files onto an iPad or iPhone with iTunes

Now that carrier mode is enabled, you can load carrier files onto the iOS device. In either OS X or Windows:

1. Connect the iOS device to the computer
2. Launch iTunes and hold the Option key while clicking on “Check for Update” to load an .ipcc file
3. Select the .ipcc file to sync the .ipcc to the iOS device
4. Disconnect the iOS device and reboot it for changes to take effect

We were sent this tip as a method to forcibly enable the Personal Hotspot wi-fi router on Australian 3rd gen iPads, which apparently ship with the feature disabled by default. The solution to that problem is apparently just a matter of loading an ipcc file and rebooting the iPad. Thanks to Jeremy for the tip info!

Everyone has run into a webpage where the font size is unbearably small on an iOS device, typically a reverse pinch gesture will make the text legible but on some pages that have a fixed width you then have to scroll sideways in addition to up and down. You can sort of get around that font size limitation by using the Reader feature on an iPhone or iPad, but that’s not ideal for every website either. This is precisely what two handy bookmarklets aim to resolve, by creating two fontsize increase and decrease buttons that can be accessed directly in Safari.

This addition is so useful that the concept should probably be included in future versions of Safari for iOS but only time will tell if that happens. In the meantime here’s what you need to do to get this working.

Repeat this process separately for both the increase and decrease functions:

1. Open Safari on iPad or iPhone and create a bookmark for any page
2. Tap the Bookmarks button at the top of the screen and choose “Edit”
3. Edit the newly created bookmark, naming it either a minus (-) or plus (+) symbol and replace the URL by pasting in the appropriate javascript code shown below, depending on the desired function
4. Save the bookmark change and load a new web page, tap on the + or – buttons to test font size changes live. Refreshing the page restores the font size to it’s default.

Decrease Font Size (-)

1

javascript:var p=document.getElementsByTagName('*');for(i=0;i<p.length;i++){if(p[i].style.fontSize){var s=parseInt(p[i].style.fontSize.replace("px",""));}else{var s=12;}s-=2;p[i].style.fontSize=s+"px"}

Increase Font Size (+)

1

javascript:var p=document.getElementsByTagName('*');for(i=0;i<p.length;i++){if(p[i].style.fontSize){var s=parseInt(p[i].style.fontSize.replace("px",""));}else{var s=12;}s+=2;p[i].style.fontSize=s+"px"}

These bookmarklet tweaks work by editing a bookmark URL and replacing it with a javascript that changes on page behavior, similar custom bookmarklets have allowed us to View Page Source in iOS Safari and even use Firebug on iOS.

This very handy solution comes from Marcos.Kirsch.com.mx, who recommends placing them in the Safari bookmarks bar for easy access.

Unhappy with iOS 5.1 and tethered booting a jailbroken device? A new version of the redsn0w jailbreak utility allows users to downgrade their iOS hardware from iOS 5.1 to iOS 5.0.1, allowing for a return to an untethered jailbreak with the previous iOS version. Perhaps most significantly, the redsnow assisted downgrade works on all A5-equipped hardware, including the iPad 3, iPad 2, and iPhone 4S. There is a caveat though, downgrading is only possible for iOS devices which have SHSH blobs saved with Cydia or TinyUmbrella, an activity that must have been performed on a jailbroken device at the time it was running 5.0.1.

To use the new downgrade functionality in redsn0w, download the latest version, launch the app, and click on “Extras” followed by “Even More” and then “Restore”. You will need the iOS 5.0.1 IPSW file to complete the task.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.11b1

• Get it for Mac
• Get it for Windows

For those without SHSH blobs saved, there remains a tethered jailbreak available for iOS 5.1.1 and an untethered variation for all devices is currently in the works with a release expected sometime over the next few weeks.

You can find more information about this specific release on the Dev Team blog.

Everyone loves a good wallpaper to beautify their desktop or homescreen. We try to post some of the nicer ones we find and to continue that tradition we’re sharing 9 more absolutely gorgeous wallpapers that have been sized for the new iPads retina display. Even if you don’t have a new iPad, the resolution of each image is a whopping 2048 by 2048 pixels which should be high enough to function as desktop backgrounds for most Mac and PC displays too.

Click the images below to open them in a new window, note the pictures hosted on InterfaceLift require manually selecting the screen resolution which will make it easy to get the perfect resolution for your display.

Read more »

If you’ve ever started to accidentally download something on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod, or you just decide you want to stop an app download for some other reason, all you need to do is tap on the app icon and hold until the icons begin to jiggle, then tap the (X) button to stop the download and remove the app from the home screen. Similarly, if you just want to pause the download instead, just tap on the icon while the download progress bar is active, then re-tap it to begin the download again.

This does not remove the app from your purchase history though, meaning you can redownload it again at any point for free either on the same iOS device or a different one attached to the same Apple ID without purchasing again, the same way you would with an accidentally deleted app.

This is a great tip for downloading temporarily free non-universal apps for the iPhone on an iPad or vice versa, that way the app is stored within the App Store’s Purchase History but it’s not taking up any space on a device it wasn’t intended for.