Key+ supercharges the keyboard on jailbroken iPhones in more ways than one

I sternly hold the opinion that Apple offers one of the best touch screen-based keyboards in the smartphone industry today, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about ways that Apple could make it better. Perhaps my biggest gripe has to do with the amount of wasted space on notched devices — especially at the bottom of the keyboard interface.

Key+ is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer XCXiao that makes much more productive use of said wasted space on the keyboard interface by filling it with useful commands and shortcuts. These include but aren’t limited to text editing shortcuts for cutting, copying, and pasting text, a way to customize the output of key swipes, a way to rapidly enter pasteboard items, and a quick entry Emoji bar.

Give the Now Playing interface an attractive background effect with MusicBackground

Listening to music is a popular activity among iPhone owners, but regardless of what music streaming app you use to jam out to your favorite tunes, one thing is certain: the Now Playing interface can be downright boring.

MusicBackground is a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Ethan Whited that hopes to solve this longstanding problem by incorporating eye-catching background effects, and it does this for the Now Playing interfaces in the Apple Music app, Spotify Music app, Tidal app, and even those found in Control Center and on the Lock Screen.

Sonyfy lets jailbreakers toggle noise cancellation mode on certain Sony headphones via Control Center

Apple’s AirPods Pro sent a shockwave through the earbud industry when they became some of the first wireless earbuds to support active noise cancellation. Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s newer AirPods Max over-ear headphones support this feature along with transparency.

But Apple isn’t the only brand pumping out earbuds and headphones with active noise cancellation and features similar to that of the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Sadly, the company limits iOS’ native controls to the first party audio consumption devices — requiring the use of third party apps to control third party accessories (eww).