CamText: add a live camera to the Messages app background

CamText 1

CamText is a new jailbreak tweak that lets users text using the stock Messages app with a live camera background. The most obvious use for a tweak like this is to provide its users with a safe way to text while walking down a busy street.

Since the camera provides a live view of a user’s surroundings using the Messages app background, it’s possible to keep one eye on an impending obstacle, and another eye on the ongoing conversation. While I believe it’s pretty sad that it’s come to this—we can’t even look up while crossing the street like a normal person—it’s hard to deny the idea’s usefulness in the face of the circumstances. 

Once you install CamText, you’ll need to venture over to the stock Settings app to find its preferences. Inside the CamText preferences, you’ll see a kill-switch toggle for enabling or disabling the tweak, and transparency slider for adjusting the stock Messages app background.

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The further you drag the transparency slider to the right, the more you will see of the camera background and the less you will see of the chat bubbles. The opposite effect is obtained by sliding the transparency slider to the left—chat bubbles are darker, and less camera background appears.

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CamText is definitely not the first implementation of this idea, you’ll find plenty of messaging apps on the App Store that pull off a similar effect. Even Cupertino itself is interested in the idea.

But CamText is perhaps the first truly decent iteration of the concept into the stock Messages app, and for that reason it deserves recognition. If you’re someone who often finds themselves in precarious situations stemming from bad texting habits, then you should consider giving CamText a go. You can find it for $1.50 on Cydia’s BigBoss repo today.

What do you think about CamText? Would you consider using it on your daily driver?