sane, FOSS iOS apps

i have an iPad (i know...) that mostly stays offline and is used for reading, and yesterday i was looking for apps that could read .cbz files and was surprised at how much adware soykaf is on the official apple app store. and that got me wondering: do any of you lains know some privacy oriented, or otherwise sane FOSS apps for iOS? i already use Joplin for basic note taking and to sync notes between systems, but i'd like to find replacements for some of the default iOS apps. i don't know if there's an iOS equivalent of F-Droid, but i'd be willing to use it. >inb4 iOS is insecure by design i know i know, that's why my device stays mostly offline and i don't use any of the other apple products.

Hello, lainanon. I have an Ipad too. I would not buy one, but said Ipad was gifted to me. Firefox is a good browser. VLC is VLC. iVim is a good text editor. KDE Connect lets me transfer files properly to my PC, which is important when the damned bastards in Cupertino refuse to let you just plug the iPad into your PC. iSH is an emulator of an x86 computer running Alpine Linux. It runs awfully slow but it is quite useful. PGPro is an okay, but not great, PGP app. This is important because crypto is slow as soykaf inside of iSH. The closest thing to FDroid is Testflight, which is a beta-testing platform run by Apple. Third-party app stores are derezzed by Apple. The GPL kinda conflicts with the App Store's TOS, which limits what one can do.

Hello, >iSoy >privacy pick the one you value the most.

foobar2000 is also a pretty good music player that can play local files. a-shell gives you a shell with python (so you can use yt-dlp or other things). look into alt-store, they might have more things you could use

>i don't know if there's an iOS equivalent of F-Droid, but i'd be willing to use it. IPhones, iPads, all of Apple's mobile devices are extremely locked down (I'm sure you already know this by now), you can only install programs from their Trusted™ App Store. If you want to install third-party programs, you have to jailbreak it, there's simply no other way around it. >iOS is insecure by design I wouldn't say that. What I would say is that it's privacy-invasive and very restrictive by design.

>>67678 >gifted ipad same here. I love the screen & audio quaility, but coming from rooted Android, I *HATE* the applel ecosystem. I've been using my iPleb Air2 without creating an appel id, and it's soo damn garbage. I did manage to "jailbreak" it with checkra1n, and install the 'TrollStore' via Sileo, but being new to iOS, the going is slow. Right now, I'm just trying to install the Firefox browser, and haven't been able to find an .ipa in the wild yet. feels bad, man. I did manage to install a gimped 3rd party file manager, a terminal emulator, and a few 'tweaks', but the experience doesn't even come close to Android. iPads are great for normal people, but not for tech power users, let alone the privacy conscious. Still, it's a new experience, and it never hurts to learn something new- well- sort of in the case of iOS hacking/tweaking. I'd trade this iPad for Android tablet of equivalent screensize in a heartbeat.

>>67752 >there's simply no other way around it. There are multiple ways around it but Apple of course makes them hard to access. One of the best is altstore, but even that makes you connect to a PC every 7 days to make it so your apps can open.

>>67903 I'm in the same boat as you. In fact, it's the same exact device. Never owned an Apple device in my life, and I wouldn't ever buy one, but a person I know didn't want one anymore. I already kind of hate it, having messed with it some, but I would really like to have a device like this. Given that my laptop is in bad shape and I don't have much cash to purchase new stuff or replacement parts right now, I kind of want to see if I can make use of it. I think I'm going to end up doing something like what OP did and keep it offline most of the time. Unfortunately, I'm not able to get the TrollStore for mine. The exploit only works on iOS versions 15.0-15.1, and mine is on 11.2.1. And, due to Apple's stupid way of handling updates, I won't be able to specifically go to that version. I've now got to decide whether I want to stick with the current version or update, both of which I feel will cause annoyances down the line.

I was given an old iPad but I intend to give it away. The screen is 1080p which is fine, but its too old for the pen so I can't draw on it with an apple pen which os the only reason I would want an iPad. For reading I'd rather use a kindle for the way the ink looks. For typing I'd rather use a laptop.

>>68127 You might wanna double-check getting TrollStore or similar on your device, as I was able to install it on my device, and I'm on iOS 14.7.1. I haven't looked intowhether or not our particular iPads can have the OS downgraded or incrementally upgraded, but it might be worth looking into. Youtube has been a great resource to learn about various types of 'jailbreaks', sources for 'app repos' and the like. Sometimes, someone will mention a resource, and a quick search will open up new avenues of information. Like you, I plan to use mine mostly off-line, mostly for reading ebooks (if I can manage to install a good multi-document reader). I do like the iPad's display aspect ratio, sound quality, overall UI smoothness, and good battery life- but not much else. I haven't really done much with mine lately, because the lockdowns on these devices are so severe.

>>68152 >You might wanna double-check getting TrollStore or similar on your device, as I was able to install it on my device, and I'm on iOS 14.7.1. What the heck. I double-checked after reading your post, and TrollStore is available starting at 14.0, not 15.0. Apparently I misread something somewhere. I do know from an article I read somewhere, though, that it doesn't work on older versions. The ability to permanently sign sideloaded apps comes from an exploit introduced in 14.0 and patched in 15.2. >I haven't looked intowhether or not our particular iPads can have the OS downgraded or incrementally upgraded I had looked into this before my post, and it seemed the operating system could only be upgraded to the newest possible version available for your device, and only downgraded in specific circumstances. The OS versions are "signed" or "unsigned", indicating whether Apple still supports that version, and I had initially assumed that an unsigned version would be flat out rejected or have other major problems. After some more research, it appears that you can go to an unsigned iOS version ...provided you at one point had the version on your device, and saved the "blobs" (from what I can gather, they're the remnants of the signature). There also a program offering a "tethered" downgrade, which means that a computer is required to boot your device. https://github.com/mineek/sunst0rm It seems to have issues with newer hardware, though. I'm still gonna need to look into stuff more. Thanks for the hint about YouTube, I'm surprised that hadn't occurred to me yet. Along with ebooks, I was partially hoping to use it as a light laptop for simple stuff, as I was given one of those keyboard cases with the iPad - although for the ebooks, my eventual plan is to save up for a nice e-reader. I agree with you about the lockdowns, though; I quit in frustration a couple of times after realizing that simple ways of doing things just weren't there. I hope you manage to find good use in yours.

>>68157 As I look around, I'll keep your iOS version in mind and post back for things that might be helpful for you. I noticed that for your iOS version there were alot of interesting videos. You may have to suffer going though alot of junk, but sometimes these will yeald a nugget that leads to a breakthrough. Be sure to check the YouTube video descriptions for useful links as well. I've gotten some good stuff out of those for my iOS version. You might also be intereest in the info below. >>67372 For what it's worth, i found this a few minutes ago. It started out just searching using terms like, 'direct .ipa download', '.ipa no apple id', '.ipa library', 'open source .ipa' etc... and lead to these direct download of iPad .ipa files: >https://ihax.io/ppsspp/ A PlayStationPortable emulator for iPad -along with installation instructions >https://ihax.io/idos-2/ An MS-DOS emulator for iPad. Incidentally, I find it helpful to check higher-up any given site tree (or links in the page) for other goodies. This yealed the main site for the above which turned out to be a hugh collection of software for, not only iPad apps, utilities & jailbreaks, etc., but Android, and Windows stuff as well. >https://archive.org/details/mega-ipa-collectionetails/mega-ipa-collection 301 iPad apps- LOL. I found these just by searching in archive.org for 'ipad' and '.ipa'. There are LOTS more files there. Worth checking out. >https://forum.xda-developers.com/tags/ipad/ Not so suprisingly, XDA has a forum for iPads. haven't checked it out yet, but XDA has been invaluable in the Android space. I haven't tried installing any of the above yet, as I am trying to prioritize getting Firefox installed, which will then let me install privacy addons like umatrix, ublock origin, and the like. Oddly enough, I found the *source code* for FF on SourceForge, but not a compiled .ipa- go figure. I 'll feel more comfortable web browsing on the ipad once this is installed, as Safari is a pain in the ass. Ultimately, if I can find a firewall app that works like AFwall or Netguard for Android, and be able to install .ipa files without ever having to use an apple id, I will have a complished my goal for this device. I'll post back during the weekend as I try these things out. Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to share info with you guys. Let's Lain around and find out- together.

>>68164 I forgot to mention it earlier, but Apple requires all web browsing app to use their web request system. I've heard this referred to before as all browsers on iOS use a bit of Safari. Apparently this is part of the reason the official Tor Browser isn't on the iOS app store. (There is a browser that uses Tor on iOS called Onion Browser https://onionbrowser.com/ , but it has limitations they list on their website.) I thought you might want to know this, as you said you were looking for Firefox ipa files. >301 iPad apps- LOL. I found these just by searching in archive.org for 'ipad' and '.ipa'. ....Aaand it's gone. That was quick, it was already gone when I saw your post the day after you posted it (I haven't had a chance to respond until now). Hopefully there's more stuff on there somewhere. >Not so suprisingly, XDA has a forum for iPads. I checked this out, and it seems they had a section for iOS at one point, but it split off into its own forum at some point. While I was checking this stuff out, I had a thought: What about using an Android VM? That might help get around some app limitations. After searching for a bit, I found an app called UTM https://getutm.app/ that does it, with some major caveats. Apparently iOS will shut down the app if it detects it using more than 20% of ram, and Android doesn't run well in general on it according to the website. I'm still on the fence over how much internet activity I want to do on the device with how bad Apple is with privacy. I'd really like to sync my calendars and tasks from my homeserver to the device, but there seems to be hardly any calendar applications out there, and I''d rather not use the native ones for obvious reasons. I'll have some time to think over it, though, as I'm very busy at the moment and I don't know when I'll get to work on the thing. I've already made a list of apps I'd like to have on the device, so that I can look for the stuff later.

>>68308 >...Aaand it's gone. Aw snap! Your right, that was fast. I checked again for other collections, (searching for .ipa) and sure enough,- at least as of the time of this post- there are other collections still there. That Android emulator does look interesting, but man, you're right about all the limitations. Still, it's good to know that those applications are out there. I worked on mine over the weekend, and ran into one brick wall after another, altho alot of my brickwalling is due to my inexperience with Apple stuff. I can't even do file transfers over USB on this damn thing, unless it's picture taken with the device. Can't even transfer picture *to* the device. Tried installing iTunes and it's associated driver crap, and still nothing. I stopped short of installing the iCloud software. If I have to install so much bloat *AND* create an account to access file locally on my device, I'd sooner not use it. Maybe there's a 3rd party file manager that will let me move files to/from the device via WIFI, like Adroid has had forever. If it continues to give me grief, I just might MURDER IT, and cannibalize the parts! Speaking of MURDER, you might be interested to know that the LCD panels on some iPad models are made by companies like Samsung and LG. Why? because as it turns out, the panels on some iPad models use generic displays that have publicly available datasheets. This means that you can buy a generic LVDS (low-voltage differential signaling) controller from AliExpress, Amazon, or eBay for anywhere from $14-35 buckaroonies and turn that iOS POS into a highly useful DIY mini hirez monitor! The LVDS controllers typically feature (depending on the controller) VGA, DVI, HDMI, composite video inputs, along with an audio jack, IR remote control and even USB media playback for movies, pictures and .mp3s, built into firmware. Best of all, if you can plugin a few connectors, you can setup one of these controllers. They also make generic 'universal' versions that will handle a wide variety of panel types & display resolutions. All you'd have to do is make SURE to check the actual panel model of the LCD screen, set a jumper or two, and your set. So, for example, the original iPad uses an LCD panel made by Samsung, and the panel model number is LTN097XL01-A01. If you were to type this model number anlong with the phrase, 'LVDS controller' you'd find several matches for boards that will work out of the box with the display. Your biggest challenge after that would be to figure out how to build a suitable enclosure. Think of the Cyberdeck you can build! I've upcycled 2 laptop displays, and a 10" Android tablet display using these LVDS controller boards, and they are fuarkin' great. Picrelated are some typical LVDS controllers. The most important parameters are the panel type (rez) & model#, panel working voltage (typically 3.3, 5, or 12 vdc- 3.3v being most common), and the backlight driver type. This would specified in the datasheet for the display, typically, CCFL or LED. The controller boards themselves are 12v powered. If you're curious about this, there are lots of videos on YT you can watch - just search for 'LVDS controller board'. Even the non-English videos were useful to me as a visual reference.

>>67372 >that's why my device stays mostly offline It doesn't and you cannot control this.

>>68316 Sorry this is not related to iOS stuff, but you seem to know about controller boards I bought a controller board which is supposed to take 12V and between 3-5A, which is quite a bit! I guess that it all goes towards powering everything in the screen? I would like to not have to spare that much I've been trying to find a power adaptor to run it but it's impossible to find anything that fits that range. I've been looking everywhere in secondhand stores and whatnot and it's all way out of range.