As someone who lives in Canada, which has been experiencing one of the coldest winters on record, it is safe to say that I have been checking the forecast a little more often than usual. That is part of the reason why I am a big fan of weather-related jailbreak tweaks such as SlideWeather, a new iOS extension that replaces the default “slide to unlock” text on the Lock screen with the current temperature and conditions.
SlideWeather pulls forecast information based on the location of your device, meaning that you must have Location Services enabled for the Weather app for this tweak to work properly. I only learned that by experimentation, as disabling Location Services caused the tweak to display no temperature and warn that a tornado was incoming. Fortunately, that is not the case. Details ahead…Â
The tweak has a small number of options that can be configured through the Settings app, including a main kill switch, toggle switch for hiding or showing the chevron symbol, and toggle switch for enabling or disabling the delay when turning on the Lock screen on the iPhone 5s. There is also a field to enter preceding text, such as “currently,” which appears to the left of the temperature. All changes are applied without respringing.
SlideWeather, developed by Phillip Tennen, is a lightweight tweak that has not impacted the battery life or performance of my iPhone. If you want to ensure that you are getting the latest forecast, make sure that you change the refresh interval from a default 300 seconds to something shorter, although the more you refresh, the more you battery will get hit.
The tweak is available now for $1.00 on the Cydia Store. iOS 7 or later is required, and the iPad is not supported.
If you want a more detailed weather forecast on the Lock screen, I recommend looking into Forecast. The jailbreak tweak essentially brings the entire Weather app to the Lock screen, for the same 99 cents price tag on Cydia. We also cover a lot of weather-related apps and tweaks in general, so it is highly likely that you will find something that works best for you.
What do you think of SlideWeather?