Apple, being a major player in the music streaming service sector with Apple Music, spends a lot of time refining the music consumption experience on its devices. In fact, we’d even go as far as to say that iPhones and iPads have some of the best music consumption interfaces in the industry.
Still, unless you’re physically inside of the Music app or another music apps of your choosing, the only other places you can go to interact with your media playback will be the Lock Screen, Notification Center, or Control Center. These are always a gesture away, and for someone who wants instantaneous access to music playback controls, that’s one gesture too many.
WaggleTunes is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer HallieHax that brings all your media controls into view via a floating media player interface whenever music is playing. The screenshot examples below depict just how minimalist the WaggleTunes media player is by design, and still, it cuts no corners to provide all the pertinent playback options a music consumer would want:
WaggleTunes supports both jailbroken iPhones and iPads.
The WaggleTunes media player snaps into place by default, however it can be configured to float freely based on where you choose to drag it. On the left of the WaggleTunes media player interface is an album artwork display while the right side houses the controls for playing and pausing music in addition to skipping to the next track or returning to the previous one.
Once installed, WaggleTunes adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where users can configure their tweak to their liking:
Options here include:
- Toggle WaggleTunes on or off on demand
- Enable WaggleTunes on the Lock Screen
- Hide the WaggleTunes media player from screenshots
- Choose between default (snap-to) positioning or free-float (user chooses) positioning
- Select preferred haptic feedback strength:
- None
- Light
- Medium
- Strong
- Select preferred media player controls size:
- Small
- Medium
- Large
- Choose between black and white or album color-derived for media player control colorization
- Choose between filled or outlines for media player control style
- Adjust the horizontal edge-snapping sensitivity
- Adjust the vertical edge-snapping sensitivity
A respring button is provided at the top-right of the preference pane to help you save the changes you make.
One of the things we appreciate about WaggleTunes is that it floats over any interface you’re using, be it the Home Screen or an app, and this makes it easy to change tracks or play/pause music in a jiff. What’s more is that the interface can be hidden from screenshots, which helps to make the always-present media player less intrusive. We should also mention that the tweak works with Apple Music as well as third-party music apps such as Pandora, Spotify, and several others.
If you ever want any additional features added to the tweak, HallieHax is always accepting feature suggestions she can be contacted via Twitter or via Email, whichever is preferred.
Those interested in giving WaggleTunes a try for themselves can download the tweak for free from the Packix repository via their favorite package manager. It supports jailbroken iOS & iPadOS 14 devices only.
Do you plan to make interfacing with media playback more convenient with the new WaggleTunes tweak? Be sure to let us know in the comments section down below.