Accessibility

Change your iPhone’s display resolution with Upscale

You can change the resolution of your computer monitor on demand, so why shouldn’t the same logic apply to the display on your smartphone?

It seems like a ridiculous limitation, and if you were thinking along the same lines, then you might enjoy a free jailbreak tweak called Upscale by iOS developers bd452 and Julio Verne.  

MPScale adds a functional distance scale to Apple’s Maps app

Despite its shaky startup, Apple's Maps app has quickly become a solid competitor with Google’s own mapping platform. But if there’s one way Apple could improve its Maps app, it would be making it easier to discern distance by adding a traditional map scale to the interface.

Fortunately, iOS developer Julio Verne was thinking along similar lines when he created a free jailbreak tweak called MPScale. Just as the name implies, MPScale adds a tiny scale indicator to the Maps app that can help users estimate distances.

This tweak lets you change between iOS keyboards with just a swipe

The method of switching between keyboards on the iOS platform has always left a lot to be desired. Tapping on the tiny Emoji/language button at the bottom-left-hand side of the keyboard is nothing short of tedious, especially if you have larger fingers, but it doesn’t need to be.

KeySwipe (iOS 11) is a free jailbreak tweak by iOS developers Delewhopper and Julio Verne that lets you switch between keyboards on demand with a swipe (up or down) on the keyboard interface. As you might come to expect, this also means you don’t need to fiddle with the tiny Emoji/language button on the keyboard anymore.

Attach root filesystem files to any iMessage or SMS on a jailbroken device with MessageFile

Your iPhone’s native Messages app incorporates a button for attaching photos and videos from your Photo Library, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could also attach general filetypes from your jailbroken handset’s filesystem much like you already can on macOS?

If you answered yes to the aforementioned question, then you’ll be ecstatic to learn about a free jailbreak tweak called MessageFile by iOS developer Julio Verne. Just as the name implies, MesseageFile lets you choose and send any file from your iPhone or iPad’s root filesystem over iMessage or SMS directly from the native Messages app.

This jailbreak tweak prevents incoming notifications from waking the display

Apple designed iOS to wake your locked handset’s display in the wake of incoming notifications, and while this helps to grab your attention, it also tends to grab the attention of others. You can easily prevent this by turning notifications off, but then you run the risk of missing important notifications altogether.

Love it or hate it, Apple’s notification-oriented display-waking feature is probably here to stay; but with a free jailbreak tweak called IllLookLater (iOS 11) by iOS developers N104 and Julio Verne, you can better control what wakes your display and what doesn’t.

HeySiri brings untethered ‘Hey Siri’ support to older devices

The latest iPhones and iPads are now so power efficient that you can effectively say “Hey Siri” whenever you want and have instant hands-free access to your virtual assistant; but that’s not the case with some of Apple’s older devices. Those such as the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus require that you be tethered to a power source for Hey Siri to work.

Albeit inconvenient, the chips in the aforementioned devices aren’t as power-efficient as those found inside of devices today; consequently, always-on Hey Siri would have an adverse impact on your battery performance. But if battery life is no object to you, then you can forcefully-enable Hey Siri on these handsets with a free jailbreak tweak dubbed HeySiri by iOS developer Julio Verene.

CyPush2 brings push notification support to Cydia

If you’ve ever jailbroken an iPhone or iPad before, then you should be familiar with Cydia as it’s the flagship package manager on the jailbroken iOS platform. Despite its rock-solid stability, Cydia has always been utilitarian by nature and isn’t known for fostering creeper-comfort features. Luckily, Saurik (Jay Freeman) empowered developers to tweak the Cydia app via Cydia Substrate a few years back.

There have only been a handful of Cydia-centric jailbreak tweaks released since Saurik first opened the gates to tweaking Cydia, some of them have been godsends. One great example is CyPush2, a tweak made by iOS developer Julio Verne to bring push notification support to the Cydia app.

GoodWiFi forces iOS to show more information about nearby Wi-Fi networks

iOS makes it easy to connect to a nearby Wi-Fi network, but there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that Apple doesn’t show you in the stock Wi-Fi Settings interface.

Enter GoodWiFi, a free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Julio Verne that extends the basic functionality of Apple’s stock Wi-Fi Settings page by adding detailed information about your (and surrounding) Wi-Fi networks.

BLightAlert leverages your iPhone’s display brightness to get your attention for notifications

iOS’ notification system tends to be subtle enough that it can be easy to forget or miss an incoming notification. Fortunately, a free jailbreak tweak called BLightAlert by iOS developer Julio Verne can help mitigate this problem.

BLightAlert leverages your handset’s display backlight to grab your attention for incoming notifications. Once installed, the display brightness changes rapidly from low to high for a couple of seconds whenever an incoming notification rolls in, like so:

AirBuddy brings proper AirPods support to the Mac

If you’ve ever used Apple’s AirPods with your iPhone or iPad before, then you already know about the seamless pairing experience that's made possible by the Apple-exclusive W1 chip. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t polished this experience on macOS just yet, and the AirPods experience on the Mac feels the same as any other Bluetooth-enabled device.

To say Apple left Mac users hanging in this respect would be an understatement, but third-party app developers have taken notice of this macOS-centric niche and now appear to be coming to our rescue.

Enjoy a fuller Home screen experience with Fullboard

Apple designed the iOS Home screen such that you could scroll through pages of app icons, but there’s always been a single row of non-scrollable, static app icons near the bottom of the display, more commonly referred to as the Dock.

Love it or hate it, the Dock is a staple in Apple’s desktop and mobile operating systems, but a new free jailbreak tweak called Fullboard by iOS developer Heft Johnson lets you nix it entirely, instead transforming the full height of the Home screen into a scrollable interface.