I also quote the section strictly dedicated to the Cydia package. The other parts (I know they're long but are still good to know) "only" explain how the utility should be used.
My setter program
Now that you know when to use the wide angle mode and when to decrease the data rate (and when avoid them at any rate), let me present my application that does all this. First, I present you with a user-level overview and, then, also explain to fellow iOS (would-be) programmers how it works.
First and foremost, you need to jailbreak your iPhone 4. This is possible with all 4.x iOS versions in untethered mode. (Even with the currently available two iOS5 betas but my program itself won't work under these OS versions because of the reworked camera engine.) Jailbreaking is legal in the States (see
THIS,
THIS and
THIS for more info) and many other countries, e.g., the EU. With 4.x versions, all you'll need to do is downloading
THIS (Mac) or
THIS (Windows) apps, run it and follow the on-screen instructions. (Note that these are for iOS 4.3.3. In the future, the links may change; if, by the time you read this, there's another 4.x version, please check
THIS for updated redsn0w download links.)
During jailbreaking, make sure you install Cydia. After the jailbreak is ready, start Cydia and select any of the three possibilities (Developer will be just fine). Then, add
http://www.winmobiletech.com/cy or
http://winmobiletech.com/cy as a Cydia repository source (currently, it's the repository that has my package) and, inside it, select the iPhone 4 camera enhancer:
Install it and start after making sure you've killed the Camera app. If you don't do the latter, the changes won't be visible in the app.
After starting, you'll be greeted by the following screen:
Here, you only have two columns in the picker to (independently) select your field-of-view and data rate. Feel free to make a selection. For example, if you want to set the field-of-view to wide and the data rate to 1/16th of the original, make the following changes:
Now, tap the
Go button to commit the changes.
There can be two cases when you're shown an error message right after starting the app: you're trying to run the app under iOS5.x or have changed the default password from alpine to something else. In the first case, either downgrade to iOS 4.3.3 (during beta, this can freely be done via iTunes without using any hacks like
TinyUmbrella); in the second, just change the password back. (After running the app once, you can change the password again it only needs to set write permissions for the system-level camera plist file once; subsequent write accesses will already be allowed, independent of the actual root password.)
If you want to fine-tune more parameters (not only the data rate and the one-step switch between wide and near field-of-view), you can do this under the second tab, Advanced view. In general, I don't think you'll ever need this; however, I still provide you with it, should you really want to play with these parameters. At first run, it presents a default settings list without a checkmark:
Each element of a list corresponds to a given configuration setting. For example, if you want to use (or fine-tune) the parameters of, say,
wide view angle (corresponding to XGA output video resolution) and quarter data rate, select the XGA 1/4 bit rate option.
In the detailed view, make your changes (if any) and, then, tap the
Save button in the upper right corner. You'll be shown an acknowledgement dialog telling you the changes are written back to the system:
After this, in the main selection list, the just-edited (or just saved) entry will have a checkmark next to it (after restarting the app too):
Finally, the last tab is just a quick explanation:
EDIT: sorry for the missing thumbnail images; they link to the original-sized ones and I couldn't convert them from plain HTML in one step. Nevertheless, the (Dropbox) image links work.