This jailbreak tweak lets you play videos in the background via Safari

While refreshing my sources in Cydia this week, I happened upon a particularly interesting jailbreak tweak dubbed playbackSafari by iOS developer CydiaGeek. Intrigued by the name and the brief description provided in Cydia’s ‘Changes’ tab, I tapped on the tweak to learn more about it, and I’m glad that I did.

With playbackSafari, you can begin playing a video in the Safari web browser and then close the app or lock your device without experiencing interruptions to the playback. While leaving the app would prevent you from watching the video, it’s worth noting that the audio continues playing in the background.

If you’re one to dodge recurring monthly subscriptions by way of music services such as Apple Music and Spotify, then playbackSafari provides a way for you to listen to YouTube’s seemingly endless supply of music videos without interruptions as you perform other tasks on your iOS device besides watching the actual video.

Music is just one example of how playbackSafari could be used, but it seems to be one of the most practical. Other examples might include following step-by-step instructions from a how-to video purely by voice or listening to a documentary without visuals for entertainment purposes.

The tweak doesn’t come with any options to configure, and it doesn’t need any because it does everything it sets out to do from the moment you install it.

If you’re interested in trying playbackSafari on your jailbroken handset, then you can download it for free from CydiaGeek’s beta repository in Cydia or Sileo. The tweak supports all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices.

Will you be installing playbackSafari? Let us know why or why not in the comments section below.