Tritium gives jailbroken iPhones always-on display functionality

Ever since the Apple Watch adopted an always-on display with the debut of the Series 5 model, I’ve wanted something similar for my iPhone. Although Apple offers seemingly no solution for such desires at this point in time, jailbreakers need not wait to enjoy what the features they want on the handsets they own.

Introducing Tritium, a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer LaughingQuoll that brings always-on display functionality to pwned handsets.

Tritium is a public beta at the time of this writing, and it’s certainly not the first tweak to bring always-on display functionality to jailbroken handsets. That aside, LaughingQuoll aspires to make a functional solution for those who desire an OEM-style experience, and the tweak uses the native Lock screen clock on top of a black background. It can be customized to a minor degree.

Upon installation, you’ll find a dedicated preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure Tritium to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Toggle Tritium on or off on demand
  • Enable or disable Nightstand Mode when charging
  • Choose a display color mode for battery impact preference:
    • Red
    • Green
    • Blue
    • Mono
    • Color
  • Configure a preferred display brightness
  • Hide or show the date label
  • Configure a Nightstand timeout period
  • Configure a Nightstand brightness level
  • Choose a preferred Nightstand color mode:
    • Red
    • Green
    • Blue
    • White
  • Enable or disable 24-hour time format
  • Enable or disable individual UI elements:
    • Third-party interfaces from other tweaks
    • Lock screen clock
    • Notification identifier
    • Status Bar
    • Quick Action shortcuts
  • And more…

The developer includes a Respring button in the preference pane interface to save changes on demand.

LaughingQuoll aims to enhance Tritium in the near future with additional features as the public beta matures. In a short discussion, we learned that there are plans to integrate more battery-saving techniques, including auto-brightness, proximity detection, and refresh frequency for third-party add-ons Such as those brought to us by Watermelon.

Those interested in trying the Tritium can purchase it for $1.99 from the Packix repository from their preferred package manager. A full-on public release is expected in the near future, and Tritium supports jailbroken iOS 13 devices.

Are you excited about Tritium? Share your thoughts in the comments below.