Peekly – an awesome new Lock screen theme featuring weather, calendar, and more

Peekly 01

Peekly is an awesome new Lock screen theme for WinterBoard. Not only does it look wonderful, but the theme features built in functionality for current weather, forecasts, calendar, RSS feeds, and more.

Like many Lock screen WinterBoard themes, Peekly can be configured using a simple javascript file, which can be edited by means of the text editor bundled with iFile. If you’re looking for a relatively lightweight Lock screen theme that looks absurdly good, then look no further than Peekly. Take a look inside for our full hands-on video review and setup guide.

The first thing you’ll notice about Peekly is how gorgeous it looks. It features a redesigned Lock screen clock, along with a redesigned slide to unlock interface. This is all capped off by a beautiful 8-bit Lock screen wallpaper that compliments the font selections for the clock and date.

But the primary Lock screen page is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Peekly. If you swipe once to the left, you’ll reveal a weather page that displays the current weather for a specific location. Along with the location name, the current temparture, the day’s highs and lows, the current status, and a visual representation of that status — think clouds, sun, etc. — is nestled right on the screen. Again, this is all complimented by a pretty looking 8-bit wallpaper.

But Peekly does more than that, as its name hints to. If you swipe on the weather page once more to the left, you’ll reveal an extended forecast. The extended forecast doesn’t reside on its own dedicated page, meaning that you can’t actually swipe to a standalone extended forecast. What you can do, is “peek” at the forecast by means of a swipe and hold gesture. Watch the video walkthrough above to get a gist as to what I mean.


The weather location can be configured to your liking

The same “peek” action can be performed on the main Lock screen page which houses the Lock screen clock and slide to unlock functions. On an unmodified setup, peeking from the main Lock screen page reveals a simple calendar. This “left peek” page can be customized to house other items like a Twitter feed, RSS feed, Gmail calendar, and more.

While these are nice options, you have to remember that Peekly isn’t like LockInfo, meaning that you can’t interact with the theme at all. Peekly is strictly intended for viewing information, not for interaction. With that in mind, I found the Twitter options and RSS options to be nice, but not exactly functional. Hence, I generally recommend sticking with the stock calendar option.

As you might imagine, lots of configuration can be done with Peekly, but it’s a totally manual affair. You can use iFile to open up the theme’s folder, and alter the settings.js text file to configure things. You can alter the weather location, change the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit, replace the clock with a digital clock, add a Twitter feed, RSS feed, Gmail calendar, etc. You can use iFile to easily alter any of these settings.

Peekly Settings
This is how Peekly is customized

I do recommend that if you’re going to use Peekly, that you install a few additional jailbreak tweaks that make the experience better. For starters, there’s Clock Hide, which hides the stock iOS Lock screen Clock. Then there’s Dim Delay, which let’s you change the amount of time it takes before the Lock screen dims.

If there’s one major gripe with Peekly, it’s the fact that the learning curve might be a bit much for beginners. For starters, the theme isn’t yet available on Cydia. You have to install it directly from the developers, Studio Graphic’s, website. This means that the theme must be downloaded, moved to the var/stash/Themes/ directory, and enabled via WinterBoard. You’ll also have to configure the theme manually by means of the settings.js text file included within the theme’s main folder. Of course this is simple to us experienced jailbreakers, but newer ones may struggle a bit.

Overall, I found Peekly to be a beautiful jailbreak theme. It’s fast, efficient, and it serves a real purpose. If you’re someone who likes the idea of altering the Lock screen, but you don’t want to go all out with something like LockInfo, or IntelliScreen X, then Peekly is worthy of your consideration. Again, if you want to try Peekly, head over to the developer’s website, and download it for free today. Don’t forget to let me know what you think about it in the comments below.