Smartphones can be incredibly useful tools in day to day life, but let’s face it, they also impose a substantial distraction that can cause even the slightest of procrastinators evade meaningful productivity. For that reason, it’s a good idea for students and professionals to use focus-oriented software.
PureFocus is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Dave Van Wijk that helps improve productivity by filtering out distractions on your pwned handset for a user-defined amount of time.
As the screenshots above depict, PureFocus prevents the easily distracted from accessing non-productive features, including:
- Notifications and Notification Center
- Distracting apps (chosen by the user)
- Distracting websites (such as Netflix, YouTube, and alike sites)
In addition to limiting user activities while Focus Mode is turned on, the tweak integrates useful features such as:
- A Control Center toggle for quick access to Focus Mode
- A countdown label in place of the date indicator when Focus Mode is turned on
- A real-time minute counter so you can brag about your productivity on social media
- Punishment if you try to circumvent Focus Mode
- And more…
The Control Center toggle appears as such:
After you install PureFocus, you’ll find a dedicated preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:
Here, you can:
- Toggle Focus Mode on or off on demand
- Choose what apps will appear on the Home screen when Focus Mode is turned on
- Enable or disable a solid colored background
- Choose a preferred background color
- Choose how long Focus Mode will stay on once toggled in minutes
- Use the “+” and “-“ buttons to change the value
- See how many minutes you’ve been focused in total
The developer provides a Respring button at the bottom of the preference pane to help you save any changes you make.
In case you were wondering what type of ‘punishment’ you receive if you try to circumvent Focus Mode, the developer says that rebooting your semi-tethered jailbroken device while Focus Mode is turned on will result in the Home screen layout being reset to factory defaults. To return this to normal without manually setting things back, simply re-jailbreak and endure the remainder of Focus Mode.
Focus-oriented software is hit or miss with certain types of people, but if you think it helps you remain productive, then we think you’ll enjoy PureFocus. The tweak is available for $1.50 from the Twickd repository and works with jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices. The developer notes that you will need Crux and LetMeBlock as dependencies from other repositories for the tweak to work as expected (we’ve linked them for your convenience).
Will you be using PureFocus to enhance your productivity? Let us know in the comments section below.