Restoring an iPhone or iPad to it’s default factory settings is easy whether you are restoring as a troubleshooting step or just preparing to transfer ownership of the hardware. You can reset the iPhone on the the device itself, but if the device is unresponsive, stuck on a boot loop, or otherwise needs to be restored directly, the next choice is to connect the iOS hardware to a computer and use iTunes.

Using iTunes is also typically faster than resetting through the iPhone or iPad itself, so keep this in mind if you tried the on-device method but it took forever.

How to Restore an iPhone or iPad with iTunes

If you want to restore to factory settings, do not restore from a backup during this process:

1. Launch iTunes
2. Connect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to the computer and select it within iTunes, if it’s not visible check the “Show” button
3. Click on the “Summary” tab and click on the “Restore” button



4. iTunes will prompt you to back up the device, this is recommended but if you want factory settings only click “Don’t Back Up”
5. At the confirmation screen, click on “Restore” to begin restoring the device to factory settings

When finished, iTunes will alert you the device has been restored, but restoring may take a while. When the device is done, the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch will boot up and be reset completely to factory settings. This means that pre-iOS 5 will require the device to be connected to iTunes to finish, or after iOS 5 you will be presented with the familiar set up screens.

As mentioned before, to maintain the factory settings do not select to restore from a backup when this process is finished, otherwise you’ll simply be left with a device that has a freshly installed iOS but with the same data as when you started.

If you encounter error 3194 during this process, you probably jailbroke your device at some point and need to change the the hosts file.

The iPhone is connected to a computer with it’s USB cable, you launch iTunes and… the iPhone isn’t shown in iTunes. What gives? Fixing this problem is probably a lot easier than you think, and after fielding a call about this I found the simplest explanation was the solution as to why someones iPhone wasn’t appearing in iTunes:

• Ensure the iPhone is connected to the computer with a functioning USB cable
• Launch iTunes
• Hover over the “DEVICES” item in the sidebar until the “Show” button appears and click on it

The iPhone will now be visible, as technically it was always in iTunes it was just hidden. It seems like the “Hide” button can be clicked accidentally, which can lead users to believe they have a more serious problem than there is. Save yourself some work and try this first the next time the iPhone isn’t in iTunes devices list.

If you attempted this and the iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch) still isn’t showing up in iTunes, you may need to reinstall iTunes itself.

Did you know the split iPad keyboard in iOS 5 includes six hidden ‘phantom’ keys that make typing even easier?

The hidden keys are Y, H, B, T, G, and V, and technically they’re just duplicates of the keys directly across from each other while the touch keyboard is split in two. This makes some of our quirkier and habitual typing gestures still work despite the fact that the user is technically typing onto nothing. Try it out yourself.

I had no idea this existed, but this great find from Finer Things has made the rounds on the web and does a great job of emphasizing how Apple pays attention to even the littlest things in their quest to protect the user from their own error and frustration.

The Absinthe Greenpoison jailbreak utility for A5 based iOS hardware has been updated to version 0.4, fixing several bugs and adding support for PPC Mac users and those running Mac OS X 10.5 on either Intel or PPC platforms.

This version is aimed at new users, and if you already have the jailbreak installed on the iPad 2 or iPhone 4S there is no reason to re-do it with this version. However, a new version of the Corona tool was released as “corona 1.0-8″ and can be found on Cydia to resolve some of the the bugs that have persisted for some iOS 5 jailbreakers. Older Mac users should be pleased the new Abinsthe version supports them, and instructions to jailbreak the iPhone 4S or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1 remain the same regardless of device or host operating system.

The official changelog for 0.4 is short:

- Mac: added support for OSX 10.5, PPC and Intel CPU
- added consistency check on startup to make sure required files are in place
- Windows: fixed bug in payload generator that might cause a crash

Download Absinthe 0.4

• Mac
• Windows
• Linux

Again, this is for iPhone 4S with iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1, or iPad 2 with iOS 5.0.1. Other hardware requires the redsn0w jailbreak for iOS 5.0.1. All 5.0.1 jailbreaks are untethered at this point.

It’s pretty hard to get excited about a USB cable, but the Dexim Visible Smart chargers are ridiculously cool in a super geeky way.

You need to watch the video below to see the effect, but basically the cable glows while it is charging or syncing to “visibly show the electrical current flowing through the cable.” The lights actually change speed based on the battery capacity of the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, with the animated lights moving quicker the lower the battery charge is, and finally stopping motion once the battery is charged.

You can buy the glowing Dexim charger on Amazon for about $30.

Coolest USB cable ever? Yea, I think so. Heads up to Gizmodo for the find.

If you haven’t set up iCloud and Find My iPhone yet, now is a good time to do so. This friendly reminder comes to us from a recent New York Times article, which details the story of a police officer using iCloud to bust an iPhone thief and return the iPhone to its rightful owner using none other than the free Find My iPhone service:

The ace up the sleeve of Officer Garland, an avid Apple consumer was something called “Find My iPhone,” a free 5.4-megabyte piece of software, or app, that he had on the iPhone in his pocket.

Punching in the victim’s Apple ID … he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.

As Officer Garland and his partner drove there, the signal source shifted, closer to Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. There, a man later identified by the police as George Bradshaw, 40, of New Lots, Brooklyn, stepped outside a Food Emporium.

Officer Garland pushed the “Play Sound” button on his phone. Instantly, a pinging beep — not unlike the sound of a submarine’s sonar — began emitting from Mr. Bradshaw, 20 feet away.

The victim later identified the robber and got her iPhone back.

So have you configured iCloud and Find My iPhone yet on all your Apple gear? It’s easy to do, read our guide on setting up iCloud and follow the instructions below to enable the specific Find My iPhone (or Find My iPad and Find My Mac) feature. You’ll need iOS 5 or later on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or OS X 10.7.2 or later on the Mac.

Setting Up Find My iPhone (or iPad)

You will need an Apple ID, iOS 5 or later on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and iCloud setup.

• Launch the Settings app
• Locate and tap on “iCloud” – if you are asked for an Apple ID you haven’t setup iCloud yet
• Near the bottom of iCloud settings, look for “Find My iPhone” and switch to “ON”, allow the app to use location services

It’s that easy to turn on, but you’re not quite finished yet because you will want to also install the Find My iPhone app for iOS. The Find My iPhone application is a free download on the iOS App Store, and lets you locate the iOS devices or Macs on a map, send messages and pings to the devices, and even remotely wipe them of their data.

Setting Up Find My Mac

Assuming you already have iCloud enabled in OS X 10.7.2, setting up Find My Mac is very easy:

• Launch System Preferences
• Click on “iCloud”
• Click the checkbox next to “Find My Mac” and then click “Allow”

The Mac will now be accessible via the iOS Find My iPhone app in the device list, and can also be pinpointed on a map using the iCloud.com website.

We’ve been made aware of some ongoing issues with apps crashing constantly on iPads running iOS 5, both iPad and iPad 2 are impacted with Safari being particularly sensitive and seemingly crashing anytime javascript or a video loads and sometimes with just general web browsing. At worst, Safari won’t even launch and crashes immediately, and often the application instability goes beyond Safari and impacts nearly all applications as well. First we’ll focus on resolving the Safari crashes, but if you’re having issues with multiple apps crashing you may want to jump down and go straight for a clean reinstallation of iOS 5.

Troubleshooting Tips for Safari Crashes on iPad & iOS 5

If the majority of crashes are centered around Safari, use these troubleshooting tips and see if the problem is resolved:

• Update to iOS 5.0.1 either manually, through iTunes, or using OTA
• Disable iCloud Bookmark Syncing: Tap on Settings > General > iCloud > switch Bookmark syncing to OFF
• Clear & Disable Autofill: Settings > Safari > Autofill > Clear All and then turn everything to “OFF”
• Clear Safari history and cookies: Tap on Settings > Safari > Clear History, Clear Cookies and Data
• Clear Safari stored data: Tap Settings > Safari > Advanced > Website Data > Remova All Website Data

Try using Safari again, for many users the above solutions help to prevent the crashing. If not, these secondary options may work as well:

• Disable iCloud Completely: Tap on Settings > General > iCloud > switch all to OFF
• Disable Javascript: Tap on Settings > Safari > Javascript > OFF

Yes, it’s annoying to not have iCloud or Javascript, but it’s more annoying to not be able to use Safari. If the above tips aren’t working, or if you need javascript, then the next idea is to manually erase and reinstall iOS 5.0.1 on the iPad, but not restore from a backup.

Performing a Clean iOS 5 Install on iPad

This is the most drastic approach because it will remove all data from the iPad, and the key for this to work is to not restore from a backup. In other words, you will lose all data on the device and have to manually setup things like iMessage again and then re-download apps and content from the iOS App Store.

Update to iOS 5.0.1 before continuing, but you already did this in the first troubleshooting step though, right?

1. Connect the iPad to a computer and launch iTunes
2. Find the iPad in iTunes device list and click on the “Summary” tab
3. Click on “Restore” under the Version section, and click “Don’t Back Up” when asked



4. Let iTunes restore the iPad, this will wipe all content and reinstall iOS 5.0.1
5. When finished, you will see the familiar ‘Connect to iTunes’ screen, do not restore from a backup, instead choose to “Set Up As New”

Note: Some Apple Store Geniuses are performing the clean install of iOS 5 from DFU mode. You are welcome to try that, although after reading through several threads on Apple’s Discussion Boards it does not seem to make a difference whether the device is restored from DFU or not, it’s more important to avoid the prior backup as it may contain corrupted data causing the crashes.

If you continue to have issues, there’s a slim chance of a hardware problem and contacting Apple may be the best bet. It’s also possible there are some lingering bugs in iOS 5 that impact only the iPad, and an update will resolve them with iOS 5.0.2 or iOS 5.1 whenever they come out. iOS 5.1 is currently available to developers as a beta, and is expected to be released to the public alongside iPad 3 in March.

Action Movie FX is a really fun free app that adds high quality special effects to videos, and it’s all done on the iPhone in a surprisingly easy package. Created by Hollywood studio Bad Robot Productions (makers of movies like Cloverfield, Star Trek, Super 8, and the latest Mission Impossible), the app came out a little while ago but has been updated to include another free special effect, demolition ball, alongside a missile launcher and a car falling from the sky. These aren’t poor quality effects either, they’re impressively made as you can see in the videos posted below. Other special effects, like tornadoes, helicopter crashes, air strikes, and gun fire, can be bought as in-app purchases for an extra $0.99 to add more fun into the mix.

Download Action Movie FX for free from the App Store

The app is compatible with iPhone 3GS and onward, but realistically it’s best coupled with the iPhone 4, Phone 4S, iPod touch 4G, and iPad 2, because of the higher resolution cameras and faster processors. You’ll also need iOS 4.3 or later but you should be on iOS 5.0.1 by now.

Here are a three short sample videos from YouTube showing off the free special effects:

Missile Launcher:

Demolition Ball:
Read more »

You can now run Siri directly on the iPad 2, thanks to the recent A5 jailbreak and a few third party tools. While Siri works as expected and will answer your questions and inquiries, getting this all put together isn’t exactly for the impatient and it’s a somewhat lengthy procedure with a fair amount of setup required. If you’re interested in this, here’s what you’ll need to get started:

• Jailbreak iPad 2 with Absinthe – must be on iOS 5.0.1
• Spire and iFile installed – free downloads via Cydia
• SiriProxy running on a computer – Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux

Jailbreaking and installing Spire are the easy parts, it’s really the SiriProxy aspect that requires the most work. It’s also not without risk, as iDB tells us:

This could make your iPad kick into “iPhone mode” which makes your screen look funky, as everything is sized for iPhone. A quick respring should fix this, but you’ve been warned. I had no problems with it, but it’s worth noting

Read the full walkthrough on how to set it up at iDB or check out their great video below to get an idea of what’s entailed in the process.

If you think it’s more trouble than it’s worth, there are rumors that the iPad 3 may include Siri as well, but that won’t be known for certain one way or another until around March.

Rather than closing out of the Camera app to view pictures you have taken on the iPhone, just swipe left from within Camera to reveal all photos contained within the camera roll. You can continuously flip through, and the standard photo options are available too, from sending as MMS or email to deleting the image.