Spotlight Search Results Blank, or Spotlight Not Working in iOS 8? Here’s a Really Silly Temporary Fix

Spotlight gained many new features and improvements with the latest version of iOS, but along with those changes came a curious bug that seems to randomly prevent Spotlight from working at all on an iPhone or iPad with empty search results.

The situation is difficult to reliably reproduce since it does appear to be completely random, but the symptom is always the same; Spotlight is summoned as usual by pulling down on the Home Screen of iOS, but no matter what is typed into spotlight, nothing is returned at all, you get just a blank screen with no search results. Even searching for something obvious like “phone” (which should reveal the phone app as well as anything that mentions “phone” including emails, messages, apps, something on wikipedia or the web, and whatever else, returns absolutely nothing – the keyword or text you type doesn’t matter, nothing works in Spotlight when you hit this bug.

Having experienced this regularly on an iPhone 6 Plus with the latest version of iOS available (8.1, more on that in a moment), I have found a really dumb workaround to resolve the problem consistently: Send yourself an email from the iPhone to your iPhone email address

Yes seriously. I know that sounds absurd, but sending your iOS device an email actually makes Spotlight search start working again. All you need to do is send yourself an email to whatever mail account is setup on the iOS device, and once the new email is detected by iOS Mail app (as indicated by a Notification or the new mail chime), suddenly Spotlight works again.

This is very obviously a bug with Spotlight, but based on emails and comments we’re getting here, it seems to be fairly widespread, as users report that Spotlight has either stopped working entirely or that Spotlight won’t return any results they were accustomed to seeing, instead users get the entirely unhelpful blank screen. Some users have reported that changing the Search results priority can also resolve issues with iOS Spotlight, but that was less reliable in testing. What makes this bug even more odd is that the iOS 8.1 release notes specifically mention a fix for Search not displaying results is included, but perhaps that was a different problem than this one.

I figured out this silly email trick accidentally when troubleshooting the blank Spotlight results problem by emailing myself a few notes. Once the new mail notification came through, Spotlight magically worked to show search results again. I have been able to replicate the fix on multiple occasions, which, while fairly goofy, is helpful and certainly preferable to the other solution that works to repair Spotlight malfunctioning in iOS, which is to reboot the iPhone (or iPad).

If Spotlight is showing you a blank screen without any search results or is randomly not working for you in iOS, give this a try, and let us know if it works for you too. Be sure to mention what iOS version you’re on too.

Source : osxdaily[dot]com

Creating Hello World App in Swift Using Xcode 6

0 Flares 0 Flares ×

The Hello World tutorial was the first programming article written for our iOS programming course. As Apple released Xcode 6, the tutorial is no longer up-to-date. We received quite a lot of emails about the tutorial update. So here you are. Instead rewriting the same tutorial in Objective-C, we’ll show you how to create the Hello World app in Swift. What’s more, we create a screencast for you.

If this is the first time you come across the tutorial, you may wonder why we teach you building a Hello World app. This programming tutorial is written for absolute beginners. We want to encourage you to learn programming. So the first app should be very simple. Despite its simplicity, the “Hello World” app serves a few purposes:

• It gives you an overview about the syntax and structure of Swift, the new programming language of iOS.
• It also gives you a basic introduction to the Xcode 6 environment. You’ll learn how to create a Xcode project and lay out your user interface using Storyboard. Even if you’ve used Xcode 5 before, you’ll learn what’s new in the latest version of Xcode.
• You’ll learn how to compile a program, build the app and test it using the Simulator.
• Lastly, it makes you think programming is not difficult. I don’t want to scare you away from learning programming. It’ll be fun.

You’ll need to use Xcode 6 (or up) to work on the Hello World project. If you haven’t upgraded to Xcode 6, just download it via this direct iTunes link.

Okay, let’s get started.

For your reference, you can download the sample Xcode project from here. I hope you enjoy our first screencast. Feel free to leave us comment and share your thought about the tutorial.

If you like the screencast, check out our new Swift programming book and get the free chapter to understand how the Hello World app works.

Source : appcoda[dot]com

Pangu8 Bootloop Fix: do not open Cydia until you have done this!

Over on Reddit at /r/jailbreak, it is a great place. It is where the jailbreak community thrives in helping one another with issues, where one can propose an idea for a tweak and be made a reality and where one can get the latest scoop on all thing jailbreaking.

I would like to credit the people who have helped out on this post here, including the original poster, Noeliel, ReddestDream for his diagnosis and clayfreeman for his fixes.

Pangu8 was released in the past few days for developers to update their tweaks and of course, many users under excitement have decided to jailbreak their iOS 8 devices. For those who’ve gone ahead and done so, you’ve probably also installed Cydia. Cydia Substrate was also released.

If you are up to this step and have or plan to:

• Use a passcode of any type
• Use Touch ID
• Use Find My iPhone

Do not open Cydia until you have performed the fix below to prevent your jailbroken iOS 8 device from entering a boot loop. If you have already opened Cydia and it has already ‘prepared’ your filesystem, scroll down for an alternate fix.

Due to Apple’s new security with the iOS 8 filesystem, the process of Cydia ‘preparing’ your filesystem will cause a bootloop when you attempt to reboot your device. Take the time to read this comment posted by ReddestDream on this post on /r/jailbreak, detailing why this is happening with Pangu8. Here’s a short snippet on the highly informative comment.

Historically, Cydia has solved this problem by relocating large files on the System Partition, such as Stock Wallpaper, Stock Ringtones, System Applications, and Winterboard themes, to the User Partition and then connecting them back to the System Partition through a system of Symbolic Links (Unix Shortcuts).

This process doesn’t work so well in iOS 8, which added a security feature that encrypts the User Partition when the device is protected by a Passcode, TouchID, or Find my iPhone.

This why the Bootlooping is occurring with PanGu8 on iOS 8 devices after Cydia rearranges the filesystem to make more room on the System Partition. iOS cannot access the system files necessary for booting that have been stashed to the User Partition until the user decrypts them by entering the Passcode, and the user cannot enter the Passcode until iOS boots.

Until a permanent fix comes out, here is how to avoid your device being sent into a bootloop if you have installed Cydia but have not yet opened the application and allowed it to prepare your filesystem. These instructions are snippets from user comments of clayfreeman on the same Reddit post as above. Here’s a link to the original comment for your reference. If you are uncomfortable with taking the risk, either do not enable Touch ID, passcode and Find My iPhone until a fix is made or restore to stock iOS until a proper fix is deployed.

1. Make a full backup of your iOS device on iTunes before attempting any of these steps. They are to be performed at your own risk. 
2. Download the patched move.sh and replace the existing one with it in /usr/libexec/cydia on your device (use an SFTP client as detailed in our installation of Cydia tutorial)
3. Whilst you are connected to your device, ensure you do not have a  /User/Library/Caches/<something>.csstore file at that respective location. If so, delete it before proceeding.
4. Reboot your device. Do not open Cydia yet!
5. After the reboot, now allow Cydia to open and prepare your device’s filesystem. It should respring after completion.
6. Now, you may enable Touch ID and Find My iPhone, to additionally use a passcode lock on your device.

Here is how to avoid your device being sent into a bootloop if you have installed Cydia and have opened the application and allowed it to prepare your filesystem. (this may or may not work if you are already in a bootloop and are SSHing into your device over USB). These instructions are snippets from user comments of clayfreeman on the same Reddit post as above. Here’s a link to the original comment for your reference.

1. Make a full backup of your iOS device on iTunes (if possible) before attempting any of these steps. They are to be performed at your own risk.
2. Create a stash on the system partition by typing mkdir -p /stash
3. Move each stash on the user partition to the system partition by typing mv /var/stash/* /stash
4. Type the following commands to redirect symlinks put in place by Cydia:

rm /Applications; ln -s /stash/*/*/Applications /Applications

rm /Library/Ringtones; ln -s /stash/*/*/Ringtones /Library/Ringtones

rm /Library/Wallpaper; ln -s /stash/*/*/Wallpaper /Library/Wallpaper

rm /usr/include; ln -s /stash/*/*/include /usr/include

rm /usr/lib/pam; ln -s /stash/*/*/pam /usr/lib/pam

rm /usr/share; ln -s /stash/*/*/share /usr/share

Whilst you are connected to your device, ensure you do not have a  /User/Library/Caches/<something>.csstore file at that respective location. If so, delete it before proceeding. If you aren’t already in a bootloop,  test that SpringBoard will restart by typing killall -9 SpringBoard (case sensitive). If you are able to respring, reboot your phone by typing reboot.

If you wish to revert the fix, run these commands as of below when connected to your device via SSH. This must be done when an official update is released to combat this issue!

rm /Applications /Library/Ringtones /Library/Wallpaper /usr/lib/pam /usr/include /usr/share

mv /stash/*/*/Applications /

mv /stash/*/*/Ringtones /Library

mv /stash/*/*/Wallpaper /Library

mv /stash/*/*/pam /usr/lib

mv /stash/*/*/include /usr

mv /stash/*/*/share /usr

 

Let us know if you face any issues so we can follow up. If worse comes to worse, if you are already in a bootloop, try downloading your device’s iOS 8.1 IPSW from a legal source and selecting the IPSW in iTunes to ‘update’ to (using command click or shift click) even if you are already on iOS 8.1. This should allow your device to boot up again, without a jailbreak.

If this doesn’t work, attempt to make a backup of your device and restore to the latest firmware (or maybe head onto the Reddit post and check for progress)

Source : jailbreaknation[dot]com

Install Cydia On Jailbroken iOS 8 / 8.1

This tutorial is for anyone that completed our iOS 8 Jailbreak tutorial and wants to use Cydia the main installer. Cydia Substrate was recently updated for iOS 8 making a great amount of tweaks viable. This tutorial will install Cydia via SSH.

This tutorial works for all iPhone, iPod Touches, and iPads

1. Open the Pangu App on your jailbroken iPhone.

2. Click Open SSH.

3. Click install.

4. Download Cyberduck for your computer.

5. Connect your iPhone to the safe WIFI as your computer.

6. Open Cyberduck click new connection SFTP / SSH enter your devices ip (found on settings on the device), then use root as name and alpine as password.

7. Navigate to  private/var/root and drag in these two files

8.  Execute the line of code in the menu bar Go > Send Line Of Code

dpkg --install cydia-lproj_1.1.12_iphoneos-arm.deb cydia_1.1.13_iphoneos-arm.deb

9.  Reboot your device

10. Open Cydia install Cydia substrate then send the command

killall backboardd

 Cydia will now work!

Source : jailbreaknation[dot]com

Enable Continuity & Handoff on Unsupported Macs with Continuity Activation Tool

Continuity and Handoff are two great features of OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 that allow an iPhone or iPad to ‘handoff’ an application, like a half-written email, over to the Mac to be completed in the Mac Mail app. It’s one of the major reasons for iOS and Mac users to upgrade to OS X Yosemite and it greatly improves productivity, but not all Macs support the feature. The Continuity Activation Tool changes that, it’s a third party utility that brings Handoff and Continuity support to some Macs that aren’t supposed to have the feature.

There are a few Macs that can use this utility right out to the box to enable the Handoff feature, whereas some other Macs would require a hardware change to a newer Bluetooth card, making it somewhat impractical unless that was on your upgrade agenda anyway. The two Macs that will get the most use out of this immediately since they don’t require a hardware change are the 2011 MacBook Air line, and the 2011 Mac Mini line, and you’ll obviously need an iOS 8 device as well. The full Mac compatibility list is below.

• Get the Continuity Activation Tool from GitHub

The utility requires you to right-click and choose “Open” to get around the developer warning, then runs in the Terminal. Hit 1 to begin the activation process and follow the onscreen instructions.

For what it’s worth, I had to run the tool twice to get the Handoff feature to actually show up in the System Preferences and then start working on a 2011 MacBook Air, but your experience may be different. This is completely unsupported by Apple, so you may want to back up your Mac before trying it out.

With the feature now possible to enable, you’ll have to follow a few additional onscreen steps to get it all working, including enabling the feature in System Preferences on the Mac, being sure it’s on in iOS, then logging out and back into iCloud on the Mac again. You can test the feature by having someone call your iPhone, it will now ring on your Mac if it wasn’t before, and if you didn’t turn off the Mac ringing feature already (you probably soon will if you get a lot of calls). You can also open Safari or Mail app on the iPhone or iPad to trigger the current session handoff to the Mac with OS X yosemite.

Since you can enable Handoff on some Macs with the help of a simple tool, it makes you wonder why Apple didn’t support those Macs to begin with, but there very well could be a reason that isn’t immediately obvious. Typically, a Mac must have Bluetooth 4.0 compatibility to have the feature accessible. The following is a list of Macs that will work with the tool, though as noted earlier some may require a different hardware adapter:

This is a great find from MacRumors, the tool was created by some of their enterprising forum members and works as advertised.

Source : osxdaily[dot]com

Pangu iOS 8 – 8.1 Jailbreak Released

Earlier today the Pangu Jailbreak team released an update to their Jailbreak software that works for devices running any version of iOS 8. The initial launch was very buggy and included problems such as the deleted photos. Since the initial release a new version was uploaded which solved most of the problems. Unfortunately the jailbreak still does not support Cydia making it not very noob friendly. Instead it grants ssh access on the device.

Saurik announced that he is working on support, but until then Apple has time to patch the jailbreak. This is mainly because of the lack of communication between the two teams and the sporadic releases Pangu is known to make.

Even though Cydia is not yet working we will post a Jailbreak tutorial shortly.

Pangu supports iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus, all iPads and iPod touches.

Source : jailbreaknation[dot]com

Did iOS 8.1 Reduce Your Battery Life? This May Help

Though the iOS 8.1 update includes many bug fixes that resolve some of the frustrating annoyances that popped up in earlier versions, a handful of users have experienced something else with iOS 8.1; quickly reducing battery life. No, we’re not talking about shaving a few minutes off how long your iPad or iPhone lasts, we’re talking dramatically reduced battery life with rapid draining.

I experienced this fast battery draining thing myself with iOS 8.1 on an iPhone 6 Plus, which after the update started to run physically warm to the touch and was losing battery at a highly unusual rate, where you can basically watch the percentage indicator tick down in real time. Several of our readers reported the same problem. That’s obviously not normal behavior, but with just a few adjustments I was able to remedy the situation and get the iPhone 6 Plus back to it’s excellent battery life. Presumably many other users who are experiencing a similar issue will find these tips to be effective as well.

The iPhone Runs Hot or Feels Warm? Let it Sit, Then Maybe Force Reboot

First, if the iPhone is physically warmer than usual, this strongly suggests there’s some intensive CPU activity going on in the background of iOS. This is most likely to happen upon the first boot after an iOS update, and it’s probably iOS running cleanup, Spotlight, and if you have it enabled – automatic updates. Give the iPhone (or iPad) some time to complete whatever process it’s doing, in my case I just let the iPhone sit with the screen locked for about 30 minutes, and it ended up cooling itself off – but in the meantime it took a major hit to the remaining battery life.

If you’ve let the iPhone / iPad do it’s thing for a while and it’s still running notably warm to the touch, a force reboot may get things back to normal. Just hold down the Power button and Home button until the device restarts itself and you see the Apple logo  indicating a reboot has occurred.

When the iPhone boots up, it should very quickly cool off and run at normal temperature – and you’ll almost certainly notice an instant difference in how quickly the battery was going down.

Check for Resurfaced Old Location Based Reminders

We all know that location services can be a drain to battery, which makes this a bit of a weird enough one to probably be a bug; I discovered that multiple (very old) location based Reminders were suddenly back and reactivated to run in the background, frequently tapping into GPS and location services to determine the location of the iPhone for a now ancient reminder to function when a destination was hit. Figuring out of this is part of the problem is fairly easy, you’ll first see the familiar little arrow icon in the iOS status bar, then you see if Reminders is the reason why by doing the following:

• Go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > and look next to “Reminders” to see if there is a purple arrow next to the name



• If the arrow next to Reminders is purple, open the Reminders app and look for old Location based Reminders that have mysteriously resurfaced and reactivated – check them off to insure they are again completed

Because you’ve almost certainly already long checked off these reminders, this is a bit odd to have them resurface. Presumably it’s a bug or maybe something to do with iCloud syncing, who knows, but it’s easy to fix. In my case, I had two ancient location specific reminders from Siri that were made ages ago which were nearby enough that the iPhone was frequently checking for. Weird. Check them off, and that was that.

Check Your Background Refresh Settings

Some iOS updates have a habit of adjusting settings again, typically turning things on that you already had turned off. This doesn’t always happen, but in my case it did with iOS 8.1 again, discovering that quite a few refresh settings had reactivated themselves. Check these yourself to see if they were reset during the update process:

• Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and toggle off apps that you don’t want to refresh themselves when not in use

In my experience, every single app that could was set to refresh in the background, despite having adjusted those long ago to not happen. Simply switching most of them off again had positive results.

By the way, these same tricks can help improve general sluggishness sometimes too, but if an iOS device feels abnormally slow, it can usually be sped up with these tips.

The above trio resolved my battery performance issues rather quickly, and I’m back to the amazing battery life of the iPhone 6 Plus which is one of the two main reasons which make it such an appealing iPhone to begin with.

If you’re having any similar battery draining problems post-iOS 8.1, let us know in the comments if you tried the above steps and if they helped you out, or if you’ve found something else to work, let us know that too.

Source : osxdaily[dot]com