Lock your iPhone by placing it face-down on a desk with DownLocker

There are typically two ways to lock your iPhone when you’re finished using it: 1) press the sleep button; or 2) wait for the lockout timer time out. But with a new free jailbreak tweak called DownLocker by iOS developer Soh Satoh, you can add a third and practical method to that list.

DownLocker utilizes your iPhone’s accelerometer system to discern the handset’s orientation in space, and when it senses that your handset is lying face-down, it locks the device. This works with virtually any flat surface, whether that object is opaque or transparent, which is an apparent advantage over similar tweaks that would use the handset’s proximity sensor instead.

Once installed, DownLocker adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure a couple of options:

Here, you can:

The developer includes a respring button at the top right of the preference pane that lets you save any changes you make on demand.

We particularly enjoy the Raise to Wake feature because it can bring what feels like a native Raise to Wake experience to an otherwise unsupported handset. On the other hand, it only works if your handset was first locked with DownLocker to begin with, so don’t use the sleep button and then expect your handset to recognize that you want to Raise to Wake; that won’t work.

Overall, I appreciate the functionality that DownLocker brings to the table, so it comes with my personal recommendation if you’ve always wanted your iPhone to behave in the manner described by the tweak.

DownLocker is available as a free download from Cydia’s Packix repository and is compatible with all jailbroken iOS 10 through 12 devices.

Will you be installing DownLocker? Discuss why or why not in the comments section below.