Merriam is a new all-in-one jailbreak tweak for customizing iOS 13 on a budget

As far as the jailbreak community is concerned, the popularity of all-in-one jailbreak tweaks is something that can’t be written off by any stretch. People just seem to love one-stop-shop because of the convenience and performance advantages that it tends to bring to the table; plus, there’s something to be said about the satisfaction of accomplishing the same thing with one big tweak that you can with a plethora of smaller ones.

Springtomize is often the first thing that comes to mind when discussing all-in-one jailbreak tweaks because it has been around the longest and it continues to receive updates with each iteration of iOS. Lately, however, we’ve seen a much higher number of Springtomize competitors that offer different options with a much smaller price tag attached. The latest of such releases is one dubbed Merriam by iOS developer kanns.

It’s difficult to spell out the types of things you can do with such a massive jailbreak tweak in just one paragraph or even with a single screenshot example. With that in mind, we’ll take great care to outline all of the tweak’s features in an easy-to-read fashion below:

Merriam feature set

Once installed, Merriam adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Enable or disable Merriam in its entirety on demand
  • Configure user interface separators throughout iOS
  • Configure Control Center
  • Configure the iOS user interface on a system-wide scale
  • Configure the Home Screen
  • Configure the interfaces and behavior of various specific apps
  • Configure the Status Bar
  • Configure the Lock Screen
  • Configure the Dock
  • Configure the App Switcher
  • Repsring your device to save all the changes you make

Breaking it all down

In this section, we’ll outline each of the tweak’s preference panes and the features they contain.

Separators

In the Separators preference pane, users can configure user interface separators on a system-wide scale. Options here include:

  • Hide app separators on a per-app basis
  • Hide 3D Touch menu separator lines
  • Hide 3D Touch menu splitters
  • Hide gray separators
  • Hide alphabet header labels

Control Center

In the Control Center preference pane, users can configure Control Center to their liking. Options here include:

  • Hide the Control Center grabber on notched iPhones
  • Hide the Status Bar in Control Center
  • Lock Control Center touches
  • Use the Reachability gesture to invoke Control Center
  • Truly disable Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth when using their Control Center toggle buttons
  • Make Control Center larger
  • Hide the Control Center chevron
  • Disable Control Center in its entirety

System-wide

In the System-wide preference pane, users can configure a plethora of options that pertain to all aspects of using iOS. Options here include:

Navigation Bar

  • Hide tab labels
  • Hide tab icons
  • Make items transparent
  • Hide tabs in the navigation bar
  • Configure big titles to small ones

Search Bar

  • Remove the Spotlight blur effect
  • Remove the Spotlight background
  • Clear the Spotlight search when not being used
  • Hide the Spotlight search bar background
  • Hide the Spotlight search bar text

Other

  • Disable the cover sheet when pulling down
  • Hide table index numbers
  • Hide the bottom tab scroll
  • Hide the scroll bar system-wide
  • Hide the table cell background
  • Hide the Home Bar on notched iPhones
  • Hide application dots
  • Hide the refresh module
  • Hide 3D Touch widgets
  • Hide selection highlighting effects

Screenshot

  • Hide flash and window after taking a screenshot

Home Screen

In the Home Screen preference pane, users can configure the aesthetics of their Home Screen user interface. Options here include:

  • Hide XEN widgets
  • Hide page dots
  • Hide application badges
  • Hide application labels
  • Hide wiggle mode done button
  • Hide folder titles
  • Hide folder backgrounds
  • Hide folder blur effects
  • Hide Today page search bar

Apps

In the Apps preference pane, users can configure a variety of settings that pertain to various applications, both native and downloaded via the App Store. Options here include:

Apple Music

  • Hide the volume slider
  • Hide test
  • Hide ‘looking for your music’ text
  • Hide trending

Phone

  • Hide your contact banner

Messages

  • Make message bubbles transparent
  • Hide the date and time of messages

Clock

  • Hide the Clock app
  • Prevent the Clock app icon from animating like a real analog clock
  • Hide the timer sound changer

Cydia

  • Hide the Cydia home page

Safari

  • Hide Safari’s segment tabs
  • Hide the share menu caption bar
  • Hide bookmarks
  • Hide apps from the share menu

Reddit

  • Hide the orbit loader

Settings

  • Hide your Apple ID account
  • Hide apple account in Apple
  • Hide alerts in Settings
  • Hide forward arrows
  • Hide battery graph
  • Hide back button

Weather

  • Hide the Weather bottom cover
  • Hide the Weather background

Mail

  • Hide grabber line
  • Hide updated bar
  • Hide from section

FaceTime

  • Hide the blur effect on startup

WhatsApp Messenger

  • Hide navigation blur
  • Hide date
  • Hide preview of message
  • Hide encryption message
  • Hide header label
  • Hide status label
  • Hide weird wallpaper
  • Hide your profile
  • Hide QR bit

YouTube

  • Hide YouTube title
  • Hide right navigation buttons
  • Hide story section
  • Hide privacy section

Calendar

  • Hide year view header

X-VPN

  • Hide select location
  • Hide connecting animation

Status Bar

In the Status Bar preference pane, users can configure options pertaining specifically to the Status Bar. Options here include:

  • Hide the green pill while in a phone call
  • Hide the time
  • Hide the battery level
  • Hide the Wi-Fi signal strength
  • Hide the cellular signal strength
  • Hide the Status Bar altogether
  • Hide breadcrumbs links
  • Change the cell provider text to “Cydia”

Lock Screen

In the Lock Screen preference pane, users can configure options relating to the Lock Screen. Options here include:

  • Hide the quick action toggles
  • Hide only the Camera toggle
  • Hide only the Flashlight toggle
  • Hide the date
  • Hide the Notification Center text
  • Hide the No Older Notifications text
  • Hide the Face ID padlock glyph
  • Hide the passcode buttons

Dock

In the Dock preference pane, users can configure their Dock however they want. Options here include:

  • Hide the Dock altogether
  • Lock touches on the Dock
  • Hide the Dock background
  • Make the Dock rounded on non-notched iPhones

App Switcher

In the App Switcher preference pane, users can configure the behavior and functionality of the App Switcher. Options here include:

  • Hide app icons from the App Switcher
  • Hide headers from the App Switcher
  • Enable a grid-style App Switcher
  • Remove the blur effect from the App Switcher
  • Make the App Switcher cards square on notched iPhones
  • Lock the App Switcher

Upon setting all the options that meet your particular needs, the developer provides two different Respring methods to save your changes. The first uses sbreload, which the developer says is the safer way to go about things, whereas the second uses killall, which allegedly isn’t as safe. Personally, I’ve used both respring methods without any problems over the years, so to each their own.

Conclusion

One thing we noticed while testing Merriam is that it seems to have a lot of ‘hide’ options for getting rid of things that normally occur on the iOS platform. That said, if you’re a minimalist, then you’ll probably enjoy Merriam because it will let you remove extraneous interface bits that you might feel get in your way.

Compared to Springtomize, we feel that Merriam offers fewer advanced customization features, but it does bring a higher number of niche options, especially for individual apps, to the table.

Those interested in trying Merriam can purchase it for the incredibly fair price of just $0.98 from the Packix repository. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS 13 devices and will receive regular updates with more features as time goes on.

What are your thoughts about the Merriam tweak and its option offerings? Let us know in the comments section below.