Jailbreaking an iPhone is essential. Without all of the jailbroken apps the phone would be severely limited in functionality and usability compared to most other smartphones. Apple’s restrictions on what you can install is THE major problem with the iPhone. Jailbreaking is the solution around their limitations. There are many apps available now through Cydia or RockApp. Some are free, and some are paid. I have used everything. Everybody has their own ideas on what is useful, but here is my opinion on the best jailbroken apps:

1. iRealSMS - As a heavy texter, the default way of receiving and sending text messages felt way too limited. iRealSMS completely fixes it. When you receive an SMS, it pops up in a new window that let’s you reply right in it. No more having to open the SMS app. You can also quickly send a message right from the lockscreen too. The new version supports contact pictures in the popup and MMS too.

2. Backgrounder (with ProSwitcher) – Being able to multitask has long been a serious limitation of the iPhone. Push Notifications was Apples solution. It was not really a solution as it only let you receive notifications and not actually multitask. Backgrounder allows you to basically minimize applictions to the background and go back to the homescreen to open another. You just have to be careful of opening too many applications because of running out of memory, especially on the 3G. ProSwitcher is an interface built on top of background that emulates the Palm Pre’s cards style multitasking. You can configure it to be activated in almost any way and it provides a nice looking, easy, and quick way to switch between multiple running applications.

3. SBSettings – This app allows you to add toggles for different settings to a drop down menu that is accessible from anywhere. It makes it so much easier and faster to toggle things such as Bluetooth, 3G, WiFi, Brightness, and more. No more going back and forth between tons of submenus in the Settings. It also has a few tweaks such as adding free memory to your status bar, hiding apps, and more. Another bonus is that is supports theming.

4. Categories (with CategoriesSB) - Another problem with the iPhone shows itself once you have installed a ton of apps. If you have enough apps to fill up 5 or 6 springboard pages it can become quite annoying to find what you are looking for. Categories adds a folder system to your springboard. Easily grouping apps together provides a much needed way of organizing all of your apps so your pages are not so cluttered. CategoriesSB is an extension that integrates Categories better. Read more about it here: http://jordandev.info/?p=165

5. LockInfo – The lockscreen is a very empty place. It could be used for so much more. A lot of apps have started to come out to try and use all that empty space for something useful. It started with Intelliscreen, but the current best of the bunch is LockInfo. It let’s you see the weather, SMS messages, emails, push notifications, twitter, todo lists, and a bunch of other useful things right on your lockscreen. New features include email previewing and notification clearing right from the lockscreen. You can read more about it here: http://jordandev.info/?p=228

6. Winterboard - Apples limitations on customization are so bad that you cannot even add a wallpaper to your homescreen, only your lockscreen. Winterboard allows complete customization of basically everything. You can add icon themes, wallpapers, tweaks, and even full UI themes so you can make your iPhone look exactly how you want it to.

7. GRiP – Apple’s recent Push Notifcation system was a welcome addition to be able to receive messages from apps that are not running. Getting Twitter, Facebook, IM, sports scores, and more is great. The problem with Apple’s implementation is that you only ever see the most recent message. What if you had received 10 different messages? You have no idea what they were. GRiP fixes this by adding a whole new way of managing these notifications. Each application’s notifications will show up in their own popup list. You can tap on that application to open it. Read more about GRiP here: http://jordandev.info/?p=98

8. Adblock – MobileSafari has no built in ad blocker. If you want one, get this. It works great and it’s functionality is pretty self explanatory. You can see examples or read more about it here: http://jordandev.info/?p=122

9. ActionMenu – When Apple finally added Copy and Paste, it was done by using a menu that popped up whenever you tapped and held down on some text. This extends that functionality by giving you more actions you can perform. Some examples are Copy All, Dial, Lookup, Tweet, etc. It also provides a clipboard history manager and a favorites list where you can store things you want to paste all the time, like your email or something similar.

10. Quickscroll – Have you ever been on a website or reading your twitter timeline or something where you have had to scroll down through what seems like thousands of pages? You have to swipe the screen madly to get to the bottom. Quickscroll replaces the standard scrollbar with one that you can grab and scroll very quickly with. You can scroll around the whole page very, very quickly. It works in every app that I’ve tried it in, including things like viewing photos. It also has a handy feature where if you tab the scrollbar it will scroll one page at a time which is nice for reading a lot of text.

11. qTweeter – If you have ever wanted to be able to post to Twitter or Facebook or both while inside an app or from your homescreen then qTweeter is for you. It provides a quick way to post messages by adding a menu you can drag down from the top of the screen. You can shorten URLs and add images also. It also has a nice feature where if you are in MobileSafari you can post a link to the current page you are on.

12. iFile – With iFile you get a file manager and viewer where you can access your entire iPhone’s hard drive system. It is great for storing things on your phone, moving files around, editing configuration files, and many other things. You can download songs, videos, or documents in MobileSafari and view them here.

13. Safari Download Manager – Provides a download manager for MobileSafari where you can queue up downloads in the background. It also integrates nicely with iFile letting you open up completed downloads.

14. 3G Unrestrictor – If you have ever needed to get around restrictions apps have on only allowing certain things on WiFi and not 3G this works great. You can view high quality youtube videos, get higher bitrate on streaming radio apps, use SlingBox, and more.

15. Overboard – If you do not like swiping between pages to get to your apps Overboard provides an overview of all of your pages where you can easily see and select where you want to go.

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