Add some character to your iPhone’s alert messages with Snell

Jailbreakers who are searching for a unique way to customize their iPhone running iOS 13 will almost certainly want to turn their attention to the likes of a newly released jailbreak tweak called Snell by iOS developer Samg_is_a_Ninja.

Snell allows users to alter and configure the aesthetics of iOS’ alert pop-ups, and as depicted in the series of screenshot examples above, the tweak provides a whole lot more than just colorization, but also the ability to change how the interface looks entirely.

Right out of the box, Snell comes with six individual presets that you can enable for on-the-fly customization, but if you’re a hardcore customizer that enjoys getting their hands dirty with the nitty-gritty, then you’ll find yourself right at home with the tweak’s suite of customization options, which will permit you to create your own aesthetics.

Once installed, the tweak adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure a variety of different elements:

The things you can do here include:

  • Toggle Snell on or off on demand
  • Customize the appearance of alerts manually
  • Choose from presets
  • Respring your device

We’ll outline the bulk of the tweak’s customization options for you below:

  • Display a test alert to see your changes
  • Configure alert background options:
    • Use app background
    • Use Home Screen wallpaper
    • Use Lock screen wallpaper
    • Configure a preferred blur style
      • No blur, darken only
      • Ultra-light blur
      • Light blur
      • Normal blur
      • Prominent blur
      • Dark blur
    • Enable and customize overlay color
  • Text options:
    • Enable and customize title text color
    • Enable and customize message text color
    • Enable and customize alert action button text color
  • Alert backdrop options:
    • Hide the stock alert backdrop completely
    • Enable and customize a title/message backdrop color
    • Enable and customize an alert action button backdrop color
    • Enable and customize an alert action button highlight color
  • Separator options:
    • Stock separators
    • Hide separators
    • Custom separators
  • Choose a custom separator color
  • Enable and configure a border color
  • Set the border radius

In the Presets pane, you can choose from different pre-configured themes, including:

  • OLED Glyph
  • Glass pane
  • Electrifying blue
  • Forest
  • Snowed in
  • Night moon

According to the developer, a Respring isn’t necessary to save your changes, but it can be recommended when applying presets to ensure that they’re fully applied. Fortunately, the developer provides a button to Respring in the primary preference pane.

Since these effects are intended for alert pop-ups and not banner notifications, you’ll only notice them if you have notifications set to alert mode or if you have apps that like to display alerts frequently. It’s worth noting that iOS’ native Low Power Mode alert and the “X has been using your location in the background” alerts count as Snell-themable alerts.

It’s worth noting that Snell relies on a dependency called libcscolorpicker, and if you don’t already have CreatureSurvive’s repository on your device, then you’ll need to add it to your package manager before attempting to install Snell or the installation will fail. That repository URL is:

https://creaturecoding.com/repo

If you’re ready to go hands-on with Snell for yourself, then you can purchase it for $1.49 from the Dynastic Repo repository via your preferred package manager. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS 12 and 13 devices and has a particularly generous refund policy if you decide you don’t like it later down the line.

What are your thoughts about Snell? Let us know in the comments section below.