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Transition from Android to iPad.

Caustic

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TL;DR AT THE BOTTOM.

Backstory:

It's been difficult to say the least. I might even be unable to do it.

My boyfriend got the new iPad 3 or whatever and gave me his old one, an iPad 2. To be honest, I was always a little jealous of his iPad. The way his applications were so smooth, the screen so much more sensitive than my Sony Tablet S. It never seemed to gain a scratch after being used almost every day by him (and he handled it rough!) meanwhile with the most gentle care my poor Tablet S managed to get several scratches. Not visible when it's on, but it still looked fairly ugly. It also felt cheap and light in my hands, and more often than not a lot of applications would crash or freeze.

So when he got his new iPad, he handed me his old one. Told me I could have it. I was hoping that with a simple jailbreak, I could do everything that I would do on my android tablet and than some. That I would be able to break free of Apple's restraining view on such devices and use it to perform all my tasks with ease. It seems like I might've been wrong, at least partially.

The issues:

The first 'issue' I came across with it was the lack of widgets. This disappointed me, I loved being able to turn on my android tablet and be greeted with my twitter feed and a list of my most recent emails, as well as being told the weather. I didn't have to jump between applications to see what I opened it up for. A button press and a finger sliding down the screen was all that was required. It felt nice. It seems that the iPad is unable to do this.

Another issue I found was the inability to download things. I know that apple would like me to use iTunes, and there are other replacements for it that perform the tasks I would vaguely require. But I had bought an album off a website and was given the option to download it. When I attempted to the first time, I was told by the website that apple does not support downloading files like that on iPhones and iPads. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, and proceeded to use Cydia to install a download manager that allowed me to do that.

Even with the new-found ability to download what I want, it didn't solve the issue. Websites flat out refused to even let me see the files I wanted to download, claiming it wouldn't work. I searched for a way to make Safari to trick websites into thinking it was a desktop browser but had no such luck. Disappointed, I went on my flight across the country with one less album to listen to.

I flew to Manitoba and went out in the middle of nowhere, only farms around me for kilometers. Although there was still a 3G connection. Who heard of a place without a 3G connection anymore? As long as the population is above 50 people there usually is. Either way, I scoffed again. 'I have an iPad. I'm not roaming. I'll just tether it to my laptop and continue on with my life.'

Another slap in the face, apparently, when I found out that there is no actual way of doing this. I rolled my eyes, 'Oh, I'll just use Cydia' and low and behold.. I couldn't find anything. Nothing. I was shocked to see that there was no way to utilize this even on a jailbroken iPad.

Beginning to feel like this wasn't going to work out, I decided to just do my web browsing on the iPad. Chrome from the appstore worked beautifully and was able to get my previous browsing from my PC at home as well as my bookmarks, and I recently bought a case with a bluetooth keyboard so it was much like using a netbook.

Bored, I decided that I wanted to use some emulators. Perhaps a little DOSbox, perhaps a little Gameboy or NES. (This will not contain a discussion of ROMs.) So I hopped on Cydia and added a couple repos to see what I could get. I came across a couple things, but... They were nowhere near as advanced as the ones on Android. What was worse is that unlike Android, the ones for the iPhone did not work on the ipad very well. They couldn't stretch out fully, they couldn't rotate with my screen, and they were incredibly lacking in features.

This is where I lost hope in it.

The tl;dr:

MY IPAD IS JAILBROKEN SO DO NOT BE AFRAID TO TELL ME OF JAILBROKEN APPS THAT WOULD ASSIST ME.

- Is there a way to get widgets on what I think is called the springboard? Whatever the home screen is called.
- Can I trick websites into thinking Safari is a desktop browser?
- Can I download legally purchased music off of websites onto my iPad so I may listen to them?
- Is there a way I can tether my iPad to my laptop or other devices and use it's internet connection?
- Are there any emulators designed with the iPad in mind?

Thank you if you can answer any of these questions.
 

yof

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1. First issue, widgets won't be across the screen without DASHBOARD X which is still in beta from CYDIA. But everything can be integrated and works very well in the NOTIFICATION CENTER. You can add tweaks from that to make it more worthwhile. It can be found in Settings.

2. If you want to download something there are apps in the App Store to do such. Or you can download "Safari Download Enabler" which is free and helps you download straight from your browser, but it doesn't work with background multitasking (so be advised). (iFile to locate your downloaded documents). You can also use Cydia to get iTransmission a torrent that is very stable on ios devices. It helps you download from torrent sites in different types of sources.

3. Skyfire Browser from App Store can help you see those files that you requested. But as for flash through sound. I'm not sure.

4. There's full screen for iPad on Cydia front page which will 2x your view of iphone format for the games.

You can trick websites to thin you are on desktop browser by looking up, incognito in cydia if nothing comes up. There are other browsers that will support desktop version other than Safari.


You can download music from any site using google "jimmy mp3 download" and as long as you have a tweak downloader for safari it'll work.

You can tether your ipad to your laptop and other devices by using MyWi in CYDIA.

There has not been great improvement for iPad related apps or tweaks yet. But there are vast many that work and more apps that function better than other OS's.


& Welcome to the iPadforums.net Caustic !
 
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Caustic

Caustic

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1. First issue, widgets won't be across the screen without DASHBOARD X which is still in beta from CYDIA. But everything can be integrated and works very well in the NOTIFICATION CENTER. You can add tweaks from that to make it more worthwhile. It can be found in Settings.

2. If you want to download something there are apps in the App Store to do such. Or you can download "Safari Download Enabler" which is free and helps you download straight from your browser, but it doesn't work with background multitasking (so be advised). (iFile to locate your downloaded documents). You can also use Cydia to get iTransmission a torrent that is very stable on ios devices. It helps you download from torrent sites in different types of sources.

3. Skyfire Browser from App Store can help you see those files that you requested. But as for flash through sound. I'm not sure.

4. There's full screen for iPad on Cydia front page which will 2x your view of iphone format for the games.

You can trick websites to thin you are on desktop browser by looking up, incognito in cydia if nothing comes up. There are other browsers that will support desktop version other than Safari.


You can download music from any site using google "jimmy mp3 download" and as long as you have a tweak downloader for safari it'll work.

You can tether your ipad to your laptop and other devices by using MyWi in CYDIA.

There has not been great improvement for iPad related apps or tweaks yet. But there are vast many that work and more apps that function better than other OS's.


& Welcome to the iPadforums.net Caustic !

This basically answers all my questions, thank you very much. :3
 

f4780y

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You may also like to look into IntelliscreenX, which does an excellent job of extending the notification centre, making it available on the lock screen and adding twitter, facebook, RSS, etc.

Also check our PerPageHTML+ which allow widgets to be placed on the springboard.

On the Emulator front, I'm a MAME guy myself, and you can't do any better than iMAME4ALL...
 

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