Unlock All Apple Maps Features On iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 & iPod touch 4G

Just a couple of days ago, the famous Cydia developer, Ryan Petrich, made it into the news (again) by porting Google Maps to iOS 6. Although this really was good news for all the lost and confused users of Apple Maps, there is still no word on the public release of this port. To make matters worse, yesterday, Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, revealed that the company’s official Maps app might not be coming to the App Store any time soon. While the whole world complains about Apple’s Maps, owners of older iOS devices are even more crestfallen than 4S and iPhone 5 users, since turn-by-turn navigation and 3D view in maps is only available for devices having an A5 or better processor. According to Apple, the older devices aren’t capable of handling these advanced features, and enabling them universally will result in reduced system stability. Ryan Petrich, though, has other ideas, and has released a tweak that unlocks all the features of Maps for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4G!

As you might already be aware, for now, there is only a tethered iOS 6 jailbreak available for pre-A5 devices. If your iPhone or iPod touch isn’t jailbroken already, you can use redsn0w to get it on a tethered jailbreak (although Cydia will have to be installed manually). If you meet all these requirements, the full Maps app is ready to be unleashed on your iDevice. The tweak that does this is named Unlock iOS6 Maps, and the name is quite self-explanatory. There are two major features that your device will get after the tweak’s installation; 3D view and turn-by-turn navigation. Unlock iOS6 Maps won’t make you do any work, and everything is done automatically.

The porting of these navigation features to older iDevices does not imply that Apple’s claim that these devices won’t be able to handle 3D view was false. The tweak makes the Maps app very laggy and slow, and we can’t say that many people will enjoy using Unlock iOS6 Maps. Having said that, access to turn-by-turn navigation is a must-have for some users, and for them, the tweak can prove to be a real lifesaver (things aren’t too bad on iPhone 4 anyway).

To install Unlock iOS6 Maps via SSH, use WinSCP and enter the following command.

apt-get install com.rpetrich.unlockios6maps

Until Google Maps come to iOS 6, this tweak might be the only plausible solution for a lot of people with old iDevices, and this makes it a useful release.

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Hamza Khalid

Handles Windows Phone, iOS and Cydia. A big WP7 fan, who just loves writing about anything and everything. Google+

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