The iPhone’s native video player certainly gets the job done, but if you’re interested in something a bit more minimalistic, then a new jailbreak tweak called Atlas by iOS developer Chr1s might be for you.
On a stock handset, the video player puts controls at all four corners of the screen. A mini widget presents itself at the bottom of the display with playback controls, a progress scrubber, and the AirPlay shortcut, while the top-right of the display presents a volume controller and the top-left of the screen presents screen filling and Picture in Picture controls.
Atlas fundamentally changes how you interact with the video player by replacing it with something so simplistic that you’ll wish it was available on your iPhone from the start. As depicted in the screenshot example below, it puts playback controls directly in the center of the display:
Many of the essential controls are now repositioned near the top and bottom of the display, including the AirPlay shortcut, Picture in Picture shortcut, and the progress scrubber. But now absent from the screen are the fast-forward and rewind 15 second buttons. They’re not gone, but rather hidden. You can access these controls by double-tapping on either the left or the right side of the display, much like in the official YouTube app.
For those interested, here’s a video representation that has been kindly provided by the developer:
Once installed, Atlas adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where users may configure the tweak to their liking:
Options here include:
- Toggling Atlas on or off on demand
- Enabling or disabling the double-tap gestures for fast-forward and rewind controls
- Enable or disable animations
A respring button is provided at the top-right of the preference pane so that you can save any changes you make on demand.
Not everyone is going to have a use for a redesigned video player on their iPhone, but if you’re interested in trying something new, then it’s a great place to start. It’s important to mention that this tweak only impacts videos that play via iOS’ native video player. Those that use a third-party video player, such as the YouTube app, won’t be affected.
Atlas is available for $0.99 from the Havoc repository via any package manager of your choosing, and supports all jailbroken iOS 14 devices. What’s more is the tweak is open source on the developer’s GitHub page for anyone who might be interested in learning more about what makes it tick.
Which video player interface do you prefer more? Be sure to let us know in the comments section down below.