Victrola gives the Lock screen’s Now Playing music interface a makeover

Whenever play music on your handset, the Lock screen becomes immersed with Now Playing music controls and information relevant to whatever might be playing. The controls work exactly how we’d expect them to, but they sport a standardized appearance and lack character.

For those who agree, it may be worth trying a new jailbreak tweak release dubbed Victrola by iOS developer Antique. If effectively provides a polarizing new look and feel for the Lock screen’s Now Playing music controls.

The before and after screenshots above depict some of the differences between the Lock screen’s stock Now Playing music controls and the Victrola-esque interface.

Perhaps the most striking difference is the rounded album artwork, which is surrounded by a progress indicator. But subtler differences, like the placement of the controls and the reduction of clutter, are also evident.

Another notable distinction is in how Victrola divorces the music controls page from the main Lock screen page; this keeps your notifications and Lock screen content separate from the music controls.

Victrola’s initial release is somewhat limited in its current form, but that should change in due time. The developer teases a bevy of upcoming features via the tweak’s Cydia depiction, including:

  • The ability to scrub through music progression
  • Buttons for ‘loving’ or ‘hating’ music
  • Buttons for ‘shuffling’ or ‘repeating’ music
  • Support for Cover Flow mode
  • A preference pane with user-configurable options
  • And more…

If Victrola sounds like something you’d like to try for yourself, then you can snag it for $2.49 from Cydia’s Packix repository. The tweak doesn’t have any options to configure (yet) and works on all jailbroken iOS 10 and 11 devices.

Do you prefer how Victrola looks compared to the stock Now Playing interface? Share in the comments below.